The story revolves around a turtle named Yertle (hence the name of the book) who is the king of a pond. He commands the other turtles to stack themselves beneath him so he may have a throne high enough to see and rule over more land "'most a mile" around.

A little turtle named Mack, who is standing at the bottom of the pile, complains, "I know, up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights." Yertle refuses to listen to Mack's pleas and commands more and more turtles to add to his throne. When Yertle notices the moon rise above him as the night approaches, he decides to call for 5,607 more turtles for the stack to try to rise above it. However, before he can give the command, Mack, strained and angry, burps, shaking the stack of turtles and tossing Yertle off into the mud. The story ends with: "And the turtles, of course... all the turtles are free, As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be."

It is said by Dr. Seuss himself that "Yertle the Turtle" was modeled after the rise of Hitler. The book explained his feelings about fascism, and Nazis in particular.[1]

Like most of Seuss' works, the poem is almost entirely in anapestic tetrameter, with very few deviations.

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