 According to Judith and Neil Morgan , the book sold well immediately . The trade edition initially sold an average of 12 @,@ 000 copies a month , a figure which rose rapidly . Bullock 's department store in Los Angeles , California , sold out of its first , 100 @-@ copy order of the book in a day and quickly reordered 250 more . The Morgans attribute these sales numbers to " playground word @-@ of @-@ mouth " , asserting that children heard about the book from their friends and nagged their parents to buy it for them . However , Houghton Mifflin 's school edition did not sell as well . As Geisel noted in Jonathan Cott 's 1983 profile of him , " Houghton Mifflin ... had trouble selling it to the schools ; there were a lot of Dick and Jane devotees , and my book was considered too fresh and irreverent . But Bennett Cerf at Random House had asked for trade rights , and it just took off in the bookstores . " Geisel told the Morgans , " Parents understood better than school people the necessity for this kind of reader . " 
