47 Charming Facts About Children's Books - mental_floss on YouTube (Ep.206)

Hi, I'm John Green. Welcome to my salon. This is Mental Floss on YouTube, and did you know that among all of the drawings in Norton Juster's original The Phantom Tollbooth, there is not a single drawing of Milo in a tollbooth

Anyway, that's the first of many facts about your favorite children's books I'm going to share with you today

When E.B. White was once asked why he wrote Charlotte's Web, he responded with a two-and-a-half-page letter about spiders in his barn and pigs

Wait, did someone say pigs? Time to put a quarter in the staff pork chop party fund. Man, that's some pig

Anyway, at the end of the letter he wrote, I haven't told why I wrote the book, but I haven't told why I sneeze either

A book is a sneeze. Katherine Patterson, on the other hand, can tell you exactly where she found the inspiration for Bridge to Terabithia

One of her son's best friends, Lisa, was struck by lightning and killed when she was just eight years old

As for the mixed up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, it was based in part on a 1965 story from the New York Times

in which the Metropolitan Museum purchased a genuine Italian Renaissance statue for just $225

So it was that combined with, you know, our universal human desire to hide in bathrooms until museums close

Maurice Sendak based the Where the Wild Things Are monsters on his Polish relatives who came to live with his parents in New York after surviving the Holocaust

Sendak described them as cheek-pinchers with crazy faces and wild eyes. Before he became a famous author, by the way, Sendak illustrated Mrs. Piggle Wiggle's farm, which I bring up entirely because somebody just said pig

Two quarters in one video, what is it, my birthday? Mrs. Piggle Wiggle is one of the many now-famous children stories that started out as an attempt to lull the author's small children to sleep

Others include Babar, Winnie the Pooh, and The Hobbit. Sick, neurotic, and masochistic are just a few of the words that critics have used to refer to Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree

Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham is a little less controversial. It was written after Seuss's editor bet him that he couldn't write a book using 50 words or less

The 50 words are A, am, and, anywhere, R, B, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if

In let, like may, me, mouse, not on or rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, thee, them

their, they, train, tree, try, will, with wood, and you!" I did it

Speaking of Seuss, he wrote the Cat in the Hat because he thought that kids needed a more interesting way to learn basic words than the boring Dick and Jane series

Also, to make sure that his publisher was paying attention, Dr. Seuss inserted this

line into a first draft of Hop on Pop. When I read I am smart I always cut whole words apart Constantinople Timbuktu contraceptive kangaroo His publisher of course was paying attention The line was later changed to My father can read big words too like Constantinople and Timbuktu

Margaret Wise Brown had no children. She left all future proceeds of her book Goodnight

Moon to a neighbor who was nine years old at the time. He has since made, and mostly

spent, more than five million dollars off of it. Mo Willems, best known for Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and Knuffle Bunny, started his

career as a writer and animator for Sesame Street, where he won six Emmys

Not easy working for Sesame Street. For starters, you gotta know how to count. Since it was first published in 1969, Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar has sold

a copy every minute. Beatrix Potter, who wrote The Tale of Peter Rabbit, was notorious for

disliking children. This is actually pretty common among children's book writers. Not

me, others. According to fellow kids author Roald Dahl, he convinced his mother to take

him to see Beatrix Potter at her farm when he was just six. And Beatrix happened to be working outside when they arrived and she asked Roald what

he wanted. He told her that he wanted to meet Beatrix Potter, to which she responded

Well, you've met her. Now buzz off. Ugh, such a Mr. McGregor move

The grown up doll used to tell his daughter's stories about one of his most famous characters

the B.F.G., long before the book existed. And after he told his kids B.F.G. stories at bedtime, he would climb a ladder outside

of their bedroom window and use a bamboo cane to blow dreams into their room, just like

his big, friendly giant. One more road doll tidbit, an early draft of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory featured

a sixth child in addition to Augustus, Mike, Violet, Veruca, and Charlie. Her name was Miranda

Piker and she met her untimely demise when she was ground into powder by one of Willy

Wonka's candy machines after refusing to listen to him. So the next time you read the Polar Express or anything else illustrated by Chris Van

Alsberg, keep an eye out for a white bull terrier. He sticks one into most of his works

in homage to his brother-in-law's dog, Winston, who served as a model for his first book

In the Polar Express you can find a Winston puppet on the bedpost. Margaret and H.A. Ray fled from France on bicycles during World War II

They escaped the Nazis by mere hours, and included among the few possessions they took

with them was a manuscript for the book that would eventually become Curious George, which

would then go on to become an epically bad movie. Pippi Longstocking's full name is Pipilotta Delicatessa Window Shade Mackerel Mint Ephraim's

daughter Longstocking. Ramona Quimby came about when Beverly Cleary noticed that every kid in her book Henry Huggins was an only child

so to remedy this, she tossed in a little sister for Beezus. Speaking of which, people often ask me why most of the kids in my books are only children

It's a joke that I have with my brother. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said that he was inspired to become a falconer by Gene Craighead George's My Side of the Mountain

In all of R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series, no one actually dies. How is it still so scary

The author of Frog and Toad Arnold Lobel was father to Mark Lynn Baker aka Cousin Larry on Perfect Strangers which may help explain why Lynn Baker later played Toad on Broadway So look for Hank Green playing Augustus Waters in The Fault in Our Stars on Broadway later

this year. That is a joke, just in case, like, EW wants to take that out of context or something

Audrey Penn was inspired to write The Kissing Hand when she saw a mother raccoon rubbing

her nose in her baby raccoon's paw. Then the baby would rub its paw against its own cheek, and the two would repeat the process

over and over. A park ranger explained that the mother was marking her baby with her scent so they could

find each other if they got separated. Penn wrote the story and I've been awing ever since

Other names considered for Nancy Drew? Diana Dare, Stella Strong, Helen Hale, and Nan Nelson

The names for the houses at Hogwarts came to J.K. Rowling while she was on a plane

so she jotted them down on an air sickness bag, which she still has by the way

Presumably it's otherwise unused. The look for Anne of Green Gables was based on Evelyn Nesbitt, one of the It Girls of

the early 1900s. It's kind of like if Kim Kardashian had inspired the look of Katniss Everdeen

Which maybe she did. Probably not. Stan and Jan Berenstain didn't just write about their namesake bears

Among their other credits, How to Teach Your Children About Sex. The first incarnation of Corduroy the Bear appeared in a story by author Don Freeman

called Corduroy the Inferior Decorator about a little boy who insisted on painting all over

the walls of his parents' house. That book never saw the light of day, but Freeman liked the name, so he kept it when

he created his popular teddy bear character. Corduroy's a good name for a bear, but not as good as Mark Cellophane

In 1956, author Michael Bond saw a toy bear sitting alone on a shelf on Christmas Eve

and he felt bad for the bear, so he bought it. He named it Paddington, because he and his wife lived near Paddington Station in London

at the time, and it was only later that he started writing stories about a marmalade sandwich-loving bear

Talking animals like Paddington once had no place in China. In fact, for a time even classics like Alice in Wonderland were banned in parts of the country

because, according to a 1931 statement by General Ho Qian, bears, lions, and other beasts cannot use a human language

To attribute to them such a power is an insult to the human race

It's a little overly sensitive. It's almost like he secretly knew that animals could talk

Like, sometimes I hear this donkey whisper, Why are you making me wear a party hat and a tutu

Despite the fact that the cover of Streganona declares that it's an old tale retold and illustrated by Tommy DePaola

The author actually invented the character. It was his publisher's idea to brand it as an old folktale

Norman Bridwell almost called his famous big red dog Tiny until his wife suggested Clifford, the name of her childhood imaginary friend

Lewis Sackers-Holz was originally supposed to be called Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Kid

Strangely enough, that's kind of how I feel about Shia LaBeouf, who of course played Stanley Caveman Yelmits in the film adaptation

The author and illustrator of Madeleine Ludwig Bemelmans painted a mural of Central Park at a bar in the Carlisle Hotel and he decided to include a Madeline cameo in the mural That right Madeline is chilling at a bar

in New York City. Something is not right indeed. Between 1986 and 2000, Scholastic published 213 novels in the Babysitter Club series

each of them classics. In total, there are more than 176 million copies of Babysitter's

Club books in print. A Wrinkle in Time was rejected by at least 26 publishers, among

Among their arguments were that it was too different because it deals overtly with the

problem of evil, and was it a children's or an adult book anyhow

There are persistent rumors that the title character from Kay Thompson's Eloise was

inspired by her goddaughter who grew up in hotels, but the goddaughter, who just happens

to be Liza Minnelli, says that that's not true. The Olivia book series came about when author Ian Falconer decided to make a present for

his niece, Olivia. After two decades of writing children's books, Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no-good

Very Bad Days author Judith Wuerst turned to Freudian psychology. When The Boxcar Children was first published, there were some upset adults who felt that

children shouldn't be enjoying themselves so much without any adult supervision. To which I say, is being a kid hobo living in a boxcar really that fun

A quarter of a million copies of Pat the Bunny are produced every year, enough to cover six

football fields in those tiny little squares of peek-a-boo cloth. And lastly, I return to my salon to tell you that S.E. Hinton was just 17 when her novel

The Outsiders was published in 1967. And yes, she is a she

S.E. stands for Susan Eloise. And even though The Outsiders came out almost 50 years ago, S.E. Hinton is still writing

books and they're still very good. Thanks for watching Menoplas here on YouTube, which is made with the help of all of these

nice people. Every week we endeavor to answer one of your mind-blowing questions

This week's question comes from Lucy, who asks, how many organs do people have

Well Lucy, it depends on your definition of organ. I mean most people don't have any organs at all

Other people have bought, you know, one or two from a church or something. Right, but we have to define what an organ is

The most widely accepted definition is that an organ is a collection of tissues that work

together to do something. But by this definition it means that like each individual bone and muscle counts as an organ

and we quickly reach like a thousand. So it depends. Maybe as few as sixty, maybe as many as seventeen hundred

Anyway, if you have a mind blowing question you'd like answered, please leave it below

in comments. We'll try to answer it. Thank you again for watching and as we say in my hometown, don't forget to be awesome

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