Playfully Dishonest

When And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street first came out, editors complained that it didn't really impart a moral or message on kids. This isn't necessarily true (check out the "What is this book really about?" section), but it does raise a good point: Seuss wants reading to be fun for kids. There are no moralistic maiden aunts or kids who get punished for straying too far from home in Seuss's books; instead Marco gets to walk along and recount all the fun things that float through his head. No one can stop him from exercising his imagination, so he's just having fun and the reader should have fun, too.

The tone of the whole book is extremely playful, even if it's full of silly things that aren't happening in real life. For instance:

Hold on a minute!
There's something wrong!
A reindeer hates the way it feels
To pull a thing that runs on wheels.
He'd be much happier, instead,
If he could pull a fancy sled. (43-48)

Nothing is serious in this book. If you don't like the wagon, you can turn it into a sled. And if you don't like the reindeer, you can turn that into something else, too. These rules may not apply in real life, but they apply in this book and they certainly apply in our imaginations. Seuss wants his reader to follow along, chuckle, and take off into their own flight of fancy.