''McElligot's Pool'' is a

children's book Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. In addition to conventional literary genres, modern children's literature is classified by the intended age of the reade ...

written and illustrated by Theodor Geisel under the pen name Dr. Seuss and published by

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

in 1947. In the story, a boy named Marco, who first appeared in Geisel's 1937 book '' And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street'', imagines a wide variety of fantastic fish that could be swimming in the pond in which he is fishing. It later became one of the Seuss books featured in the Broadway musical '' Seussical'' where its story is used for the song "It's Possible".

Plot

The story begins with a boy named Marco fishing in a small, trash-filled pond known as McElligot's Pool. A local farmer laughs at the boy and tells him that he will never be able to catch anything. Nevertheless, Marco holds out hope and begins to imagine a scenario in which he might be able to catch a fish. First, he suggests that the pool might be fed by an underground brook that travels under a highway and a

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

to reach the sea. Marco then imagines a succession of fish and other creatures that he might catch in the sea and therefore the pool. He imagines, among others, a fish with a

checkerboard A checkerboard (American English) or chequerboard (British English) is a game board of check (pattern), checkered pattern on which checkers (also known as English draughts) is played. Most commonly, it consists of 64 squares (8×8) of alternating ...

stomach, a seahorse with the head of an actual horse, and an eel with two heads. When Marco is done imagining, he tells the farmer, "Oh, the sea is so full of a number of fish, if a fellow is patient, he ''might'' get his wish!"

Creation

Geisel painted some of the water colors that illustrate ''McElligot's Pool'' while vacationing with his wife, Helen, at the summer home of their friend Kelvin Vanderlip, in Southern California.Morgan & Morgan 1995, pp. 120–122 The book was the first Dr. Seuss book to use water colors for its illustrations, but because of budget concerns, Random House published half of the book in black and white, alternating between two pages in color and two pages in black and white. Marco, the book's main character, first appeared in ''And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street'',Fensch 2001, pp. 90–93 the first Dr. Seuss book published in 1937 by Vanguard Press. Geisel dedicated the book to his father, whom the dedication refers to as "the World's Greatest Authority on Blackfish, Fiddler Crabs, and Deegel Trout". According to Dr. Seuss biographers Judith and Neil Morgan, "deegel trout" was a private joke between Geisel and his father that was started during a fishing trip when Geisel was a boy. His father had bought large trout from Deegel hatchery and pretended that they had caught them.

Reception

''McElligot's Pool'', Geisel's first book in seven years, was published by

in 1947 and was well received. It became a Junior Literary Guild selection and garnered Geisel his first

Caldecott Honor The Randolph Caldecott Medal, frequently shortened to just the Caldecott, annually recognizes the preceding year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". It is awarded to the illustrator by the Association for Library Service ...

. The review in the ''

Saturday Review of Literature ''Saturday Review'', previously ''The Saturday Review of Literature'', was an American weekly magazine established in 1924. Norman Cousins was the editor from 1940 to 1971. Under Cousins, it was described as "a compendium of reportage, essays a ...

'' stated: "Children will have nothing but admiration for this boy who heard there were no fish in McElligot's Pool and then saw them swimming in from the sea". M.B. King of the '' Chicago Sun'' emphasized the book's humor: "This time prepare to chuckle under water for you'll be meeting the weirdest, wildest, funniest creatures of the sea which imagination can conjur". S.J. Johnson of ''

Library Journal ''Library Journal'' is an American trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey. It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional prac ...

'' called the book "as divinely idiotic" as Dr. Seuss' earlier title ''And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street''. American trade editions of the book were printed in 1947, 1974, 1975, and 1992, and a library edition was printed in 1999.

Withdrawal from publication

On March 2, 2021, Dr. Seuss Enterprises withdrew ''McElligot's Pool'' and five other books from publication because they "portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong". Dr. Seuss Enterprises did not specify which illustrations were offensive. The book uses the word "

Eskimo ''Eskimo'' () is a controversial Endonym and exonym, exonym that refers to two closely related Indigenous peoples: Inuit (including the Alaska Native Iñupiat, the Canadian Inuit, and the Greenlandic Inuit) and the Yupik peoples, Yupik (or Sibe ...

" in one instance, as an adjective describing a type of imagined fish that might swim from the North Pole to McElligot's Pool. The term "Eskimo" is considered by some to be a derogatory ethnic term. There is an accompanying illustration depicting the fantastical group of "Eskimo Fish" in hooded fur parkas.

References

Sources