and Tony were young and stalling for time. The idea for Stanley came to him one night at bedtime when his sons J.

Preferring to write himself, he sold fiction and articles to national magazines while working at The New Yorker, Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Esquire and finally at Warner Books, where he was a senior editor until 1980. In Hollywood he worked for the producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr. A graduate of the Professional Children's School, he provided a child's voice in a radio drama and appeared onstage. Originally a child actor, he became Jeff Brown because Actors Equity already had a Richard Brown as a member. Jeff Brown was born Richard Chester Brown. In translation, he traveled to France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan and Israel, among other places. The character's life extended further, as schoolchildren mailed cut-outs of him to their friends. All together, Stanley's tales have sold nearly a million copies in the United States alone.

The last, 'Stanley, Flat Again!,' was published the year he died. Flat Stanley became the star of a series of perpetually popular books. Jeff Brown had worked in Hollywood and as an editor and writer in New York before creating Flat Stanley, a hero for the youngest readers whose adventures, with illustrations by Tomi Ungerer, were first published in 1964. I was going to ask for new clothes, but my mother already bought them.Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. I am a regular boy, except that I got flat, the letter said. In the little office at the back of the house, the girl studied the letter her mother had mentioned, framed with others on a wall: 'It’s not fair! Really! I mean, everything’s ready! Why-'

Think of your favorite letter, the one by your desk! He just growled at me!' 'They’ve lost faith, don’t care anymore, he says! Surely not everyone, I said. He won’t go this year, he says! The mother sobbed. Well done, elves! Good work!īut at home in Snow City Square, all was not well.ĭon’t slam the door, dear, said her mother, weeping. In the Wrap Shed the gifts lay ready, wrapped now in gay paper with holly and pine cones, sorted by country, by city or village, by road or lane or street. In the great workshops-the Doll Room, the Toy Plant, the Game Mill-Gift Elves had filled the orders, taking care as to color and size and style. She was the sort of little girl who liked to be sure of things, so she went all over Snow City, checking up.Īt the Post Office, Mail Elves had read the letters, making lists of who wanted what.

Stanley christmas adventure