One thing I loved about Amy Bloom was that she included, in her college syllabus, "The Cat in the Hat." You would read and discuss Alice Munro's works, and the sad, weighty fictional universe of Raymond Carver, but then you'd also spend time on Dr. Seuss. If I could have designed my entire college experience, there would have been a great deal of Dr. Seuss--generally. I hadn't really lived, in significant ways, so vast swaths of Tolstoy and Brecht and Tacitus were lost on me. The main thing about Dr. Seuss: A good piece of writing is as seamless and authoritative as a dream. It takes the reader from point A to point B. There doesn't have to be a moral. There doesn't have to be a grand statement about history. You just have to feel transported. And so "small," intense stories can sometimes seem more successful than "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or "The Help." What in the world are you meant to take from "The Cat in the H...