The King’s Stilts

A seventy-five-year-old King gets new vintage cover art for his anniversary!

     Celebrate the 75th birthday of Dr. Seuss's classic treatise on the importance of a balanced life with our Anniversary Edition featuring cover art from the books original publication! A Seussian spin on a conventional fairy tale, The King's Stilts is as topical today as when it was first published in 1939. It's the story of a devoted king who works hard and plays hard—and whose entire kingdom is threatened when his beloved stilts are stolen and he is too distraught to do his job. Written in prose instead of rhyme (unlike Seuss's later works), The King's Stilts nevertheless addresses subjects that we know Dr. Seuss was passionate about throughout his life: duty (as in Horton Hears a Who and Horton Hatches the Egg); the abuse of power (as in The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins and Yertle the Turtle); deceit (as in The Bippolo Seed and How the Grinch Stole Christmas)--and even cats (as in The Cat in the Hat and I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today)! A perfect way to introduce new readers to an old classic, or to reward existing fans with a collectible new edition. Follow the Good Doctor's advice: After a hard day of work, have fun with a great book like The King's Stilts!

One of Dr. Seuss's earliest works, The King's Stilts shows how important it is to both work hard and play hard. In the Kingdom of Binn, King Birtram works very hard, up at five every morning to ensure the kingdom is running smoothly. But at five o'clock in the afternoon, the workday ends and it's time to play . . . and in the case of King Birtram, that means racing around town on a pair of red stilts! But sour old Lord Droon doesn't think that this kind of fun is befitting Binn's king, and he steals the beloved stilts. Missing the stilts, King Birtram cannot have fun. In his sadness, the king doesn't notice that Binn is in danger: the Dike Trees that hold back the sea are being destroyed by the evil Nizzards. Can young Eric the page boy outsmart the dreary Droon and save the day?

This Read & Listen edition contains audio narration.