Herbert S. Zim was born in 1909 in New York City. He was a naturalist, author, editor and also known as the fonder and editor in chief of the Golden Guides series of nature books. Zim wrote or edited more than one hundred scientific books, and in a thirty-year career teaching in the public schools introduced laboratory instruction into elementary school science. He is best known as the founder in 1945, of the Golden Guides, pocket-size introductions for children to such subjects as fossils, zoology, microscopy, rocks and minerals, codes and secret writings, trees, wildflowers, dinosaurs, navigation and more. He was the sole or co-author for many of the books, which were valued for their clarity, accuracy and attractive presentation helped by the illustrations of James Gordon Irving.
He continued to work on the Golden Guides series until Alzheimer's disease forced him to slow down in the 1990s. He died in 1994 at Plantation Key, Florida.
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