That Cat in the Hat will stick -- if licked

The Springfield, Mass. native who made a story-time staple of rhyming whimsy about green eggs and ham and cats with hats has won a piece of popular iconography.

The U.S. Postal Service, encouraged by strong ballot-box support in western Massachusetts, will unveil a stamp next month honoring Dr. Seuss's most famous creation.Or, as the famous children's author might have put it: That fuzzy cat in the tall striped hat will soon feel frequently damp; his little fans from his creator's land have helped turn him into a stamp!

The new Cat in the Hat stamp will be issued at a gala planned for May 26 at the Springfield Civic Center.

"This is a celebration of children's literacy, and a recognition of how reading books is so important," said Joseph Carvalho, president and executive director of Springfield Library and Museum, who helped promote the stamp.

"Here's a writer who touched generations of Americans and who continues to touch them in a very special and unique way."

Once the sober domain of presidents, philosophers and philanthropists, stamps are now as likely to celebrate popular culture. Elvis -- forever young and slim -- has one. So does Marilyn Monroe, Popeye and Bugs Bunny.

And soon, so will Theodor Seuss Geisel, who created such classics as "Green Eggs and Ham," and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" over a 54-year career. The 1984 Pulitzer Prize winner for children's literature, who died in 1991, drew on his Springfield boyhood for his first book, "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street."

The Seuss stamp is one of 15 stamps selected by nationwide vote last year to commemorate the 1950s. A Postal Service advisory panel selected subjects for the first five decades of the century and the public has now voted on subjects for the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

Another son of Massachusetts, heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano of Brockton, is also among the 1950s stamps.

Other stamps to be issued depict images of video games, the fall of the Berlin Wall, personal computers, hip-hop cultures, Sesame Street, disco music, the Beatles, Woodstock, and baseball great Jackie Robinson.

The design of the Cat in the Hat stamp will not be made public until its unveiling next month.