Ten Apples Up on Top! was published by Random House in 1961 under the pseudonym Theo. LeSieg, with illustrations by Roy McKie, and is one of the most effective counting books in the Beginner Books catalog. A lion, a dog, and a tiger compete to see who can balance the most apples on their heads, escalating from one to ten while going about increasingly elaborate activities — skating, riding bikes, roller-skating down hills.
The book’s simple vocabulary (roughly sixty distinct words) and its visual comedy make it immediately accessible to pre-readers, while the competitive structure — each animal trying to outdo the others — gives the narrative the momentum that keeps children turning pages. The climax involves an angry mob of bears trying to knock the apples down with mops, a scene of satisfying chaos that resolves with the three competitors triumphantly retaining all thirty apples.
Collecting Ten Apples Up on Top!
First edition (Random House, New York, 1961): Beginner Books format, pictorial boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine in jacket: $500–$1,200
- Without jacket: $100–$300
- Later printings: $5–$15
As a LeSieg title with McKie illustrations (rather than Seuss’s own art), it occupies a secondary tier in Seuss collecting but remains a consistent seller due to the book’s popularity with young readers.