Mercer Mayer

Author and illustrator of many great children's books, mostly picture books. Born December 10, 1943 in Little Rock, Arkansas, he started publishing in 1967 with the wordless "A Boy, A Dog, and A Frog" and since then has published over 300 books, according to the brief bio of Mayer on www.littlecritter.com. (I think that includes other people's works that he's illustrated, too.) The best known and most popular are those published by Golden Publishing featuring Little Critter and his family, but there are a lot more (including the one I most fondly remember from my childhood, "Professor Wormbog in Search of the Zipperump-a-Zoo."

One of the best Mercer Mayer thangs out there is the series Mercer Mayer's Critters Of The Night.

Some titles include
• Ooey Gooey, in which Captain Short Bob loses a tooth and fruitlessly seaks the sea beast that took it,
• Midnight Snack, in which the toad Groad makes a snack for the mosters passing by,
• To Catch A Little Fish, (my personal favorite) in which young Thistle Howl catches a little fish "I took him home to Momma.../and put him in a dish." The kicker is, the "little fish" is actually a huge, grumpy octopus, and the pictures tell the real story.

These are technically children's books, but any adult who loves The Nightmare Before Christmas and such ilk will like them as well.