His wife, Rebecca Clements, confirmed his death and said the cause had not been determined. “I just made up the word frindle, and they all laughed because it sounded funny,” he wrote on his website. And the word “frindle” (“rare, humorous”) was eventually added to Wiktionary, the free online dictionary run by the foundation that operates Wikipedia. AD“It was one of those beautiful books that grew by word of mouth from the beginning,” said “Frindle” editor Stephanie Lurie. He later joined Alphabet Press, an upstart children’s publishing house formed by one of his former students in Natick, Mass., where he worked as a sales manager and editorial director — and published his first picture book, “Bird Adalbert” (1985), under the name Andrew Elborn.

Source: Washington Post December 17, 2019 00:33 UTC