Ann McGovern | Children's author, 85

Ann McGovern, 85, the author of more than 50 children's books that illuminated fables, history, the animal kingdom, and other arcana and exotica for young readers, died Saturday at her home in New York City. The cause was cancer, said her son, Peter McGovern.

For decades, Ms. McGovern's books were mainstays of public libraries, classroom book nooks, bedroom shelves, and children's treasure piles.

She was perhaps best known for Stone Soup, first published in 1968, a picture book recounting the folk tale about a vagabond who persuades an elderly woman to make him soup from a stone - and other ingredients that, through the traveler's ingenuity, join the rock in the stew.

Stone Soup and other books by Ms. McGovern sold millions of copies.

Ms. McGovern wrote a number of Little Golden Books, mainly based on children's television shows, before venturing into independent writing projects. Her collaborators over the years included the acclaimed illustrators Ezra Jack Keats and Tomie dePaola.

Her marriages to Hugh McGovern and Howard Greenfeld ended in divorce. Her third husband, Martin Scheiner, died in 1992. In addition to her son, survivors include her companion of eight years, Ralph Greenberg, three children from her third marriage whom she adopted as adults; and three grandchildren. - Washington Post