14 Surprising Facts About Children's Book Authors
![14 Surprising Facts About Children's Book Authors](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/6/8/770868_320x180.jpg)
I want you to go back in time in your mind and remember your favorite children's book. Think about the story, the characters, and illustrations that fill your mind. Think about the feelings you felt when reading it, back when your biggest worry was whether or not you could make it to the potty on time. Got that? Now, imagine the person who wrote that book for you. What do you have popping in your head? Is it a Mother Goose-like matron figure? A Mr. Rogers-type with a quirky bowtie? Clearly, it's someone with a sunny disposition who loves kids and has had no traumatic experiences.
Well, you're wrong. Some of the best children's book authors are frustrated cranks that don't really like children. And those that do like kids and write for them, they're making up for their childhoods which were lost to strife or tragedy.
Here's some real facts about the children's authors whose work you love:
![Maurice Sendak BEST KNOWN FOR WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE CRACKED CON Sendak didn't like being called a children's book illustrator, saying I'm in the idiot role of being a kiddie book person. He married Eugene Glynn, and they were together almost 50 years.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/2/0/770820.jpg)
Source: The Guardian
![Norton Juster BEST KNOWN FOR PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH CRAGKED COM Juster was an architect in New York when a child came up to him in a restaurant and asked, What's the biggest number there is? The following conversation inspired Phantom Tollbooth.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/4/770844.jpg)
Source: NYTimes
![Margaret Wise Brown BEST KNOWN FOR GOODNIGHT MOON GOODNIGHT MOON CRACKEDcO Brown wrote over 100 children's books, even though she told a reporter, I don't particularly like children. She lived extravagant and fought for better royalties for illustrators and writers. She died suddenly at 42-years-old.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/3/770843.jpg)
Source: NPR and Magaret Wise Brown
![Antoine de Saint-Exupery BEST KNOWN FOR THE LITTLE PRINCE Saint-Exupery joined the French airforce during WWI, where he became a daring pilot. In WWII, he served again, but on a flight mission on July 31, 1944, he disappeared mysteriously.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/6/6/770866.jpg)
Source: National WW2 Museum
![Eric Carle BEST KNOWN FOR THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR by Eric Carle 00 Carle grew up in Nazi Germany. His father was conscripted to fight for the Germans and was taken as a POW. When Carle was 15-years-old, he had to dig trenches on the Siegfried line.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/3/2/770832.jpg)
Source: The Guardian
![Ted Dr. Seuss Geisel BEST KNOWN FOR THE CAT IN THE HAT Geisel changed his depiction of a Chinese man in a reprint of And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street to be less offensive. This evolution goes to show Dr. Seuss himself may have supported](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/5/5/770855.jpg)
Source: The Art of Dr. Seuss
![Judith Viorst BEST KNOWN FOR ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY luutrated bw RAY CRUZ Viorst is a prolific poet, starting when she was seven-years-old writing a poem about her dead parents. Both her parents were alive and did not appreciate it.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/6/7/770867.jpg)
Source: NPR
![Robert Munsch BEST KNOWN FOR LOVE YOU FOREVER CRACKED COM Munsch worked at a daycare where he learned how to tell kids stories. He wrote the book (originally a song) Love You Forever after having two stillborn children.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/0/3/770803.jpg)
Source: Robert Munsch
![Marcus Pfister BEST KNOWN FOR RAINBOW FISH CRACKED COM Publisher's Weekly gave Pfister a poor review when the book was translated from German to English, saying the story has trouble staying afloat and calling the plot predictable.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/0/8/770808.jpg)
Source: Publisher's Weekly
![Crockett Johnson BEST KNOWN FOR HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON CRAYON by Crockett CRACKEDCO Maurice Sendak (of Where The Wild Things Are fame) illustrated 8 of Johnson's wife Ruth Krauss' books and was an Cinformal) apprentice to the couple in his early 20s.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/6/5/770865.jpg)
Source: Kansas State
![Judy Blume BEST KNOWN FOR ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, MARGARET ZENB oew Blume advises parents to trying to get their kids to read, The best thing to do is leave the books around the house and from time to time say, 'I really don't think you're ready](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/1/2/770812.jpg)
Source: NPR
![Shel Silverstein BEST KNOWN FOR THE GIVING TREE CRACKED COM Silverstein was a Grammy-award songwriter and Playboy cartoonist who reluctantly agreed to write children's books.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/9/6/770796.jpg)
Source: Grammy and Biography Today
![E. B. White BEST KNOWN FOR CHARLOTTE'S WEB White wrote over 1800 pieces for The New Yorker over his 50 years with the magazine. His wife was a fiction editor who often reviewed children's literature and encouraged him to write.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/2/6/770826.jpg)
Source: The New Yorker and NPR
![Roald Dahl BEST KNOWN FOR CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY CRACKED COM Dahl had anti-Semitic beliefs, once saying, Even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason. His family has publicly apologized.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/9/5/770795.jpg)
Source: The Guardian