Green Eggs and E-Books? Thank You, Sam-I-Am

Dr. Seuss books, those whimsical, mischievous, irresistibly rhymey stories that have been passed down in print to generations of readers, are finally catching up with digital publishing.

"The Cat in the Hat" will soon be available for download.

The Dr. Seuss canon will be released in e-book format for the first time, beginning later this month, his publisher said on Wednesday, an announcement that could nudge more parents and educators to download picture books for children.

E-book sales have exploded in the last five years in adult trade fiction, with many popular titles, like “Fifty Shades of Grey,” selling far more copies in digital format than in print.

Picture books have lagged far behind. Several publishers said e-books represent only 2 to 5 percent of their total picture book sales, a number that has scarcely moved in the last several years.

But the release of the Dr. Seuss books, still hugely popular after decades in print, could move that number higher. The e-books will be available on color tablets, including the iPad, Kindle Fire and Nook HD. The first titles to be released, on Sept. 24, include “The Cat in the Hat,” “Green Eggs and Ham,” “There’s a Wocket in My Pocket!” and “The Lorax” (featuring an environmentally conscious character who might be happy about the announcement).

The e-books will be faithful reproductions of the print books in terms of text, illustrations and layout, said Susan Brandt, the president of Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the organization that manages the books and the movies, and the apps and television shows based on them. Enhanced versions with bells and whistles might come later, she said.

Barbara Marcus, the president and publisher of Random House Children’s Books, said she did not envision digital sales of picture books overtaking print, but that the releases would provide an additional option for parents who want the convenience of e-books.

“We see it as a companion to print,” Ms. Marcus said. “We are facing, in a happy way, a transitional moment in picture books. I believe the school market is becoming more interested in digital, and we want to be there.”

Random House is the primary English-language publisher of Dr. Seuss’s books, and Ms. Marcus, who took over as publisher last fall, said one of her first goals was to “ratchet up the Dr. Seuss publishing strategy.”

“When you start to look at how many amazing books there are, and how many amazing properties there are that he wrote and didn’t illustrate, then you start to look at what hasn’t been promoted or touched recently,” she said. “You start to realize that this is a whole wealth of wonderful books and properties, and there’s so much great opportunity.”

The author of the Dr. Seuss books, Theodor Seuss Geisel, died in 1991 at 87. But he held on to the digital rights for his books, Ms. Brandt said.

“He was a genius in many ways, and one of his geniuses was that he held these rights,” she said.

More than 600 million print copies of Dr. Seuss books have sold to date.

Educators and literacy experts have been divided on whether parents should avoid exposing their children to e-books. Junko Yokota, professor emeritus and director of the Center for Teaching Through Children’s Books at National Louis University in Chicago, said that when a picture book is replicated exactly in digital form, there is very little reason to shun the digital version.

“I don’t think it matters,” she said. “They’re both reading experiences. And I don’t think kids who don’t have access to the e-book will be hurt by their lack of access to it.”