The Way Mothers Are

Miriam Schlein, whose nearly one hundred books, written over 50 years, taught very young children about animals and concepts like time and space, died on Nov. 23, 2004 in New York. She was 78 and lived in Manhattan.

Ms. Schlein found new ways of telling children about bats and skunks and porcupines and their behavior even as she cleared up myths about them. Some of her books were about dinosaurs: "Before the Dinosaurs" (1996), illustrated by Michael Rothman; "The Dino Quiz Book" (1995), illustrated by Nate Evans; "Let's Go Dinosaur Tracking!" (1991), illustrated by Kate Duke; and "Discovering Dinosaur Babies" (1991), illustrated by Margaret Colbert.

Other works featured elephants, pandas, sea horses. pigeons and squirrels. Two new books, her last: "The Story About Me," and "Little Raccoon's Big Question." She first appeared in print in 1951 with "A Day at the Playground" from Golden Books, where she worked as a secretary.

Ms. Schlein received a B.A. in English and psychology from Brooklyn College in 1947 and then held a number of jobs in advertising and publishing. She was in the children's department of Simon & Schuster when she decided that her future lay in writing. She pursued it with a series of books about concepts, illustrated by Leonard Kessler and published by William R. Scott. They included "Shapes" (1952) and "Heavy Is a Hippopotamus." In the 1950's she also wrote some stories about children and animals that won her wide recognition and awards, including "Four Little Foxes," "Elephant Herd," and "When Will the World Be Mine?" about a baby snowshoe rabbit, which The New Yorker called "a poetic book."

Some of Ms. Schlein's books were Junior Literary Guild Selections and several of her natural-science titles received Outstanding Science Books for Children awards. "When Will the World Be Mine?" (1953), republished 20 years later as "The Rabbit's World," was named a Caldecott Honor Book.

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