When I read this in my oh so early youth and witnessed the hats becoming fancier and fancier, I was delighted.

Bartholomew Cubbins lives on a farm. He looks across the land to the castle and feels very small. King Derwin lives in the castle and looks down toward the farms. He feels mighty important. One day Bartholomew is walking from his farm to the town to sell cranberries. The king with his trumpeters and King's Own Guard are racing through town on a royal precession. King Derwin stops the precessional when he see Bartholomew with his hat still on. The king becomes angry and demands Bartholomew Cubbins take his hat off. Bartholomew reaches up again to remove his hat. Magically another hat sits on his head. He now has three hats. King Derwin has Bartholomew arrested and brought to the castle.

Originally published in 1938, this Dr. Seuss book has very little rhyming. It is a book to entertain. The pictures are printed in black and white with Bartholomew's hat shaded in red. The text is advanced. I would say a seven year old and older. There are a few situations Bartholomew sent to the executioner, Bartholomew to be thrown from the highest turret, and the spanking of the Grand Duke that might need parental explanations.

A great little story about a boy with a hat he can't remove until...

I enjoyed this story; it felt very much of its day. The illustrations were nice and there was hardly any rhyming. What rhyming there was I couldn't tell if it was accidental or not.

For some reason this was one of my favorite stories when I was little.

Notes:
too much scary/death stuff for my little ones
story is unnecessarily long

This was one of the first Dr. Seuss books I ever read, and it was a delight to re-read it. It's not in the well-known rhyming format we're accustomed to with Dr. Seuss, but it is full of wit, great pictures, and interesting characters.

Feb 2019 ... I hadn't read this book for quite a while, but working in the library I decided to share some of my favorite Dr. Seuss. This one, unlike most of his books, does NOT rhyme ... and I'm not really sure there's a "hidden message", either, as in Green Eggs and Ham. But it's an enjoyable story of fantasy and whim ...

The first straight prose book I've read by Dr. Seuss.

I found it too long, too wordy, with a unoriginal setting and a plot that is uninspiring.

After starting the the fantastic And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, Dr. Seuss seems to have had a bad case of follow-up album not meeting expectations.

Bartholomew Cubbins is in town to sell some cranberries for his parents when the king passes by. Bartholomew takes off his hat, only another one is there. How will he be able to remove his hat and keep from getting killed? A bit dark for a Seuss book, but one that older pre-schools will enjoy.

Read my full review at Carstairs Considers.

Refreshing, entertaining, lyrical, and as much as those words mean, it was quite an experience reading Dr. Seuss' book.

He always are able to capture the kind of magic that makes you keep on reading, and make your mind go curious on what to happen next. If I were still a small boy, it might have greater impact for me. It helps me to realize that there are so many things to believe, and people are having different ideas and minds about it.

It makes the world interesting, makes the world a wondrous place to live and be curious at. I sometimes think that the world we live in is a temporary playground where we get to explore, to be curious about and wander around.

This book certainly delivers that.

I have been dreading to read this book not because of the plot but for the mere fact that it is a very long book considering that its a children illustrated books. It surprises me that even though it is relatively a short book compare to an adult novel, it feels the same as to reading a 500-paged book. Luckily I am fortunate enough that this was not a bad book but not a typical Dr. Seuss book.

I have to warn everyone that since this one of Dr. Seuss earliest works, it lacks the usual creative method that Dr. Seuss incorporates in his other iconic works. There is barely any rhyme in the book and the illustrations are mostly black and white which is a complete shame since I love being captivated by Dr. Seuss illustrations.

The story is about a young boy named Bartholomew Cubbins who is practically poor. He lives in the outskirts of the town and from my estimated guess his family are farmers. One day he has the unfortunate task of needing to sell cranberries and to earn quick profit for his family. Meanwhile the King of Didd, King Derwin is heading from his castle to stroll around and see the locals. As a custom when being in presence of royalty, you are supposed to take off your hat and bow and when the King arrives, he tells his coachmen to stop and drive backwards because he witness someone who hasn't taken their hat off.

That individual as you guess is Bartholomew Cubbins. He does have his hat off but for some mystical magical purpose the moment he takes off his hat another hat appears. The King gets outraged and demands that he removes the hat again and when Bartholomew is unable to accomplish that task, he is sent to the palace where the King try out different solutions to this issue. The King tries magic, executioner, bow and arrows, hat expert, and even elders who know the history of the Kingdom and worlds beyond and yet no one is unable to solve this hat problem.

The final option is to push Bartholomew from the tallest tower and to pummel to his death. While all this is going on, Bartholomew is constantly removing his hat and it isn't until he removes his 500 hat that the mystery is solved. When he gets to 500, his hat has changed to the most beautiful and elegant hat and the King decides to spare his life. In the process the King wants all his hats and offers 500 gold coins and they live happily ever after.

While I really enjoyed the storyline, I wish it could have been shorter and could at least had more rhyme to the story. I believe when you have rhyming in children's books, it makes the story flow better and the pacing quicker. If I were a child, I would have been bored by this story and give up midway through. For an early Dr. Seuss book, I will accept that he hadn't come full circle to discovering his craft and his creative flow.

P.S. If you really enjoyed this book and want to read more adventures of Bartholomew and the King then you should definitely check out the sequel which is Bartholomew and the Oobleck.

“In the beginning, Bartholomew Cubbins didn’t have five hundred hats. He had only one hat.”
From 1938 – Tagline: “In the kingdom of Didd, King Derwin is riding through a street past Bartholomew Cubbins, a poor boy in the market. Bartholomew removes his hat, according to the laws, but another hat mysteriously appears; when he attempts to remove this one too, another one appears again, and this continues, even as he removes more and more hats, each growing in extravagance and beauty. This is the first book where Dr. Seuss did not write any words in rhyme. Made into a Madcap Model Oscar-nominated short in 1943 in the Paramount Pictures series.”
This is just probably the best Dr Seuss story. It’s silly and absurd, but it also winks at a kind of irreverence that is both important and very American. There’s a kind of Emperor’s New Clothes element to it that’s very fetching as well.
Bartholomew Cubbins is a boy in a fantasy kingdom who wears a red hat. All the art in the book is charcoal with just the hats being in color. They are a kind of Robin Hood style hat, but red. When the king drives by in his carriage everyone takes off their hat. Bartholomew does as well, but he doesn’t know that when he lifts his hat, there’s an identical one underneath. The retinue stops and he’s accosted by the king’s guard, made to take off his hat, where another one lies directly underneath. This begins a long process of the king getting increasingly mad, and there being ever more hats. We know exactly how many hats too.
I like the lesson here: fuck a king. Nobody has to take off their hat for you.

This book is a child hood favorite and I have read it a lot. Dr. Seuss has filled my child hood with greatness. I love this book. It is a funny and exciting book. The 500 Hats is a great book.