Else Holmelund Minarik

Else Holmelund Minarik (September 13, 1920 – July 12, 2012) was an American author of more than 40 children's books. She was most commonly associated with her Little Bear series of children's books, which were adapted for television. Minarik was also the author of another well-known book, No Fighting, No Biting!

Born in Fredericia, Denmark, Minarik immigrated to the United States at the age of four with her family. By 1940, Else had married Walter Minarik, who died in 1963. After graduating from Queens College, City University of New York (B.A., 1942), she became a journalist, for the Daily Sentinel newspaper of Rome, New York, during World War II. She subsequently lived on Long Island, where she was employed as a first-grade teacher for the Commack School District. She later lived in Nottingham, New Hampshire. Minarik married her second husband, Pulitzer-winning journalist Homer Bigart, in 1970; after his death in 1991, she moved to Sunset Beach in Brunswick County, North Carolina, where she continued writing longhand, as she always had.

Minarik's last book, Little Bear and the Marco Polo, was published in 2010. After having suffered a heart attack at 91, she died at home from complications, on July 12, 2012.

• Little Bear series illustrated by Maurice Sendak, except for the last Little Bear book

1. Little Bear (1957)
2. A Present for Mother Bear (1958)
3. Father Bear Comes Home (1959)
4. Little Bear's Friend (1960)
5. Little Bear's Visit (1961)
6. A Kiss for Little Bear (1968)
7. Little Bear and the Marco Polo (2010, illustrated by Dorothy Doubleday)

• No Fighting, No Biting! (1958) (illustrated by Maurice Sendak) (1958)
• The Little Giant Girl and Elf Boy (1963) (illustrated by Garth Williams) (1963)
• Cat and Dog (illustrated by Fritz Siebel)
• Percy and the Five Houses (1989) (illustrated by James Stevenson)