Tens of millions of children have grown up learning to count, to name things correctly, to behave well, to know what adults do all day, and to recognize cars and trucks and things that go because Richard Scarry taught them how. In dozens of books, with hundreds and hundreds of illustrations, and in witty, memorable words, Scarry revealed to kids that the everyday world was a place that could be understood - and that learning was fun.

Although he died in 1994, Scarry has never been more popular, or better loved by those who read him. Such a man is worth knowing more about, and this first biography presents the debonair, humorous, charming figure that Scarry was.

Illustrated with personal and family photographs and with the artist's own drawings and paintings, this book has been prepared by two old friends and colleagues - Ole Risom, who was the art director for all of Scarry's major books, and Walter Retan, his editor for many years at Random House and Golden Press. In words and pictures the book traces Scarry's life from his roots in Boston to a post-World War II art school training and a brief career in advertising. Bored with selling products, Scarry put himself forward as a children's book illustrator and began turning out pictures for other people's words.

Soon, he himself was writing texts, and eventually he hit upon the magic touch that catapulted him to nearly universal popularity - a menagerie full of animal characters who behaved like humans, but with unfailing good humor and grace.