My First Book, Sort Of

Back when I was a toddler in my crib at 2814 East 120th Street in Cleveland, my mother used to tell me stories in Hungarian to help me drop off to sleep. When the stories were her own, they usually involved a fairy princess and a dark forest. But when she was running out of ideas, she would take out children’s story books from the city library on East 116th Street and translate the story into Hungarian while showing me the pictures.

One of them I remember very clearly was Dr. Seuss’s The King’s Stilts. Picture to yourself a kingdom that was below sea level, surrounded by tall dikes covered with trees. These trees were constantly under attack by flying nizards, which went after the roots.

Fortunately, there were legions of patrol cats (P.C.s) deputed by King Birtram to keep the nizards from destroying the trees and flooding the kingdom. When not busy signing proclamations, the king delighted to whizzing around his kingdom on a pair of red stilts.

One day, wicked Lord Droon decided to have the king’s stilts buried by Eric, the royal page, because he thought it was too infra dig for the monarch to be enjoying himself so much. The king was thereupon so despondent that he no longer gave orders to the patrol cats, and the nizards’ attacks were resulting in streams of water flooding into the kingdom.

Fortunately the story has a happy ending. Here, on YouTube, is the Dr. Seuss book, complete with words and pictures:

Naturally, I own a copy of the book. It is a constant reminder of my mother’s ingenuity and love.