In nineteen sixty Doctor Seuss was urged by a book publisher to write a book using less than fifty words.

VOA: special.2010.05.02

To write the book, Ruth Krauss asked very small children how they would define words like "face," "dog" and "party."

VOA: special.2009.10.05

Later,the famous American songwriter Johnny Mercer was asked to write English words to the music.

VOA: special.2009.11.09

He used less than two hundred twenty-five words to write the book.

VOA: special.2010.05.02