

The children ranked Green Eggs and Ham third, just above another Dr. In 1999 the National Education Association (NEA) conducted an online survey of children and teachers, seeking the 100 most popular children's books. Green Eggs and Ham was published on August 12, 1960, and became the fourth-best selling English-language children's hardcover book of all time. The 50 words are: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.

Seuss's publisher) that Seuss (after completing The Cat in the Hat using 236 words) could not complete an entire book without exceeding that limit. The vocabulary of the text consists of just 50 different words and was the result of a bet between Seuss and Bennett Cerf (Dr. Green Eggs and Ham is one of Seuss's " Beginner Books", written in a very simple vocabulary for beginning readers. Finally, the unnamed character gives in to Sam's pestering and tries the green eggs and ham, which he does like after all and happily responds, "I do so like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-Am." He continues to repeat this as Sam repeatedly follows him. The unnamed character refuses, responding, "I do not like green eggs and ham. A character named "Sam-I-Am" pesters an unnamed character to try a plate of green eggs and ham.
