High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories is a picture book collection by Theodor Seuss Geisel, published under his more commonly-known pseudonym of Dr. Seuss. It was first released by Random House Books on April 12, 1958, and is written in Seuss`s trademark style, using a type of meter called anapestic tetrameter. Though it contains three short stories, it is mostly known for its first story, "Yertle the Turtle", in which the eponymous Yertle, king of the pond, stands on his subjects in an attempt to reach higher than the moon—until the bottom turtle burps and he falls into the mud, ending his rule.