 Geisel gave two conflicting , partly fictionalized accounts of the book 's creation in two articles , " How Orlo Got His Book " in The New York Times Book Review and " My Hassle with the First Grade Language " in the Chicago Tribune , both published on November 17 , 1957 . In " My Hassle with the First Grade Language " , he wrote about his proposal to a " distinguished schoolbook publisher " to write a book for young children about " scaling the peaks of Everest at 60 degrees below " . The publisher was intrigued but informed him that , because of the word list , " you can 't use the word scaling . You can 't use the word peaks . You can 't use Everest . You can 't use 60 . You can 't use degrees . You can 't ... " Geisel gave a similar account to Robert Cahn for an article in the July 6 , 1957 , edition of The Saturday Evening Post . In " My Hassle With the First Grade Language " , he also told a story of the " three excruciatingly painful weeks " in which he worked on a story about a King Cat and a Queen Cat . However , " queen " was not on the word list , nor did his first grade nephew , Norval , recognize it . So Geisel returned to the work but could then think only of words that started with the letter " q " , which did not appear in any word on the list . He then had a similar fascination with the letter " z " , which also did not appear in any word on the list . When he did finally finish the book and showed it to his nephew , Norval had already graduated from the first grade and was learning calculus . Philip Nel notes , in his dissection of the article , that Norval was Geisel 's invention . Geisel 's niece , Peggy Owens , did have a son , but he was only a one @-@ year @-@ old when the article was published . 
