A Communist Cat?

You might remember from The Cat in the Hat that Seuss loved him some Cold War allegories. Since The Cat in the Hat Comes Back was published in 1958—right smack dab in the heat of the conflict—it's no surprise that there's a reddish/pinkish hue to the whole thing.

Here's how the experts think of it:

• The pink stain represents the spread of communism.
• The narrator and Sally's reaction to it highlights the ridiculousness of anti-communist paranoia.
• And that Voom? Well it's kind of the last ditch effort, isn't it—kind of like a nuclear weapon.

The experts agree: Mr. Menand writes, "The association with nuclear holocaust and its sterilizing fallout, wiping the planet clean of pinkness and pinkos, is impossible to ignore" (source).

So how do you read it? Are we talking about kid-friendly morals, literacy and language, or all-out nuclear war?