Else Homelund Minarik, the Danish-born author of the hugely popular “Little Bear” (HarperCollins) series for beginning readers, died July 12 at her home in Sunset Beach, NC, of complications following a heart attack. She was 91.
Born in Denmark on September 13, 1920, Minarik came to the United States at the age of four and didn’t speak a word of English. She learned to speak the language when her mother took her to the playground and translated what other children were saying.
Minarik responded to a shortage of teachers during World War I by teaching first graders. She began writing stories for beginning readers because she found so few of those books for her young daughter, Brooke. Ursula Nordstrom, the legendary editor of Harper Books for Boys and Girls, was also aware of the lack of books targeting this age group and decided to launch ‘I Can Read” books, which was a new genre at the time.
When Nordstrom saw Minarik’s manuscript for Little Bear—the story of an anthropomorphized cub’s forays into the wider world told in short sentences and simple words—she knew it would be a hit. Minarik’S work proved it was possible to write very simply with warmth, tenderness, and humor. The New York Times said Little Bear should be considered on two counts: “Its joyousness and its usefulness. It passes on both counts.”
Illustrated by the late Maurice Sendak, the first “Little Bear” book came out in 1957 and launched Harper’s “I Can Read” list. Kid lit expert Leonard Marcus wrote in Dear Genius (HarperCollins, 2000), a biography of Nordstrom, that the book “set a brilliant standard for all the I Can Read Books to follow.” The “Little Bear” series has sold more than 12 million copies.
Minarik’s second “I Can Read” book, also illustrated by Sendak, was No Fighting, No Biting! Little Bear’s Visit in 1962 became a Caldecott Honor title. Minarik wrote several other stories, and in 2010, she wrote one more Little Bear story called Little Bear and the Marco Polo, illustrated by her friend, Dorothy Doubleday. Like earlier Little Bear stories, this one celebrated imagination and the unconditional love of a young bear for his sea captain grandfather.
“Else Minarik pioneered a ground-breaking genre that is still thriving today,” says her publisher, HarperCollins. “She will be greatly missed by the children’s book community.”
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