The Cat in the Hat Comes Back is a children's storybook written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss in 1958, and the sequel to The Cat in the Hat.
The boy and girl from the first book have been put to work shoveling snow by their mother while she is in town for the day. While they are working, the Cat in the Hat walks into their house, despite their protests. The boy follows the Cat inside and finds him taking a bath while eating cake. Ordering the Cat to leave, the boy lets the water out of the tub... only to find that the cake has left a pink ring in it. The Cat spends the rest of the book spreading the stain around in an attempt to get rid of it.
The book contains examples of:
- The Cat Came Back: Well, it's in the title. The book's plot is kicked off by the Cat coming back to cause more trouble, much to the dismay of the kids, who understandably want nothing to do with him after the events of the first book, with the boy trying to get him to leave early on.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The fish from the first book does not appear.
- Get Out!: The boy says this after finding the Cat eating cake in the bathtub.
- Interrupted Bath: The Cat's bath is interrupted by the boy ordering him out and then letting the water out of the tub.
- Matryoshka Object: The Cat has Little Cat A under his hat, who has Little Cat B under his hat and so forth. Underneath Little Cat Z's hat is the "Voom", which unleashes some kind of divide-by-zero effect only for when the Godzilla Threshold has been reached (in this case, cleaning up the yard).
- No Name Given: Like in the first book, the boy who narrates the story is never mentioned by name.
- Put on a Bus:
- Despite being a prominent character in the first book, the children's fish is never even mentioned in this book. Partly justified, since most of the story takes place outside, and because the kids remembered their last encounter with the Cat and are far less trusting of him as a result, making the fish's role unnecessary.
- Thing One and Thing Two are both absent and replaced by the Little Cats, who fulfill a similar role.
- Race to Clean Up: The Cat ends up creating a stain in the bathtub, and he and the kids spend the rest of their time trying to get rid of the stain before the children's mother comes back.
- Riddle for the Ages: What exactly is "Voom"? All the boy knows about it is "it really cleans up snow!"
- Sequel Hook: The book ends with the Cat saying that he'll be very happy to come back again. This ultimately goes nowhere, as no further sequels with the Cat were written (however, he does reappear in several spin-offs).
- Took a Level in Jerkass: While the Cat had always been The Trickster, he was at least somewhat well-meaning in the first book, wanting to entertain the miserable and bored kids during a storm while their mom was away. Here, however, the Cat is noticeably more brash and inconsiderate, with him inviting himself into the kids' home simply because he wanted to get out of the snow.
