To the editor of the NYT:

The Times’s praise of the wonderful and important books of Tomi Ungerer is, if anything, understated (2/12/2019). Those of us in the children's literature field have long appreciated his unique voice. But this sentence in the obituary for Mr. Ungerer brought me up short: "The Mellops books and others, with their quirky stories and simple but idiosyncratic drawings, stood out in the often uninspiring world of children’s books."

1957, the year the first Mellops book was published, also saw the publication of Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat, Edward Gorey's The Doubtful Guest, Dare Wright's The Lonely Doll, Tove Jansson's Moominland Midwinter, Robert McCloskey’s Time of Wonder, and the first of the Else Minarik/Maurice Sendak Little Bear series, among many others. Most children’s book fans would consider them classics, and each is still in print after more than sixty years. Children’s books continue to be ground-breaking and, indeed, inspiring, thanks to so many extraordinary creators and their publishers.

Leda Schubert

Plainfield, VT