1. Jack Prelutsky served as the first US Children's Poet Laureate from 2006 to 2008 when the Poetry Foundation established the award.
13 Facts About Jack Prelutsky
1. 2.
Jack Prelutsky was born on September 8,1940, in Brooklyn, New York, to Charles Prelutsky, an electrician, and Dorothea Prelutsky, a homemaker.
3.
Jack Prelutsky attended local public schools in the Bronx, hated the experience, and was bored in class.
4.
Jack Prelutsky was a good teacher because she taught me not to like it, too.
5.
Jack Prelutsky graduated in 1958, and went on to Hunter College for two years.
6.
Jack Prelutsky loved to draw imaginary turtle animals, and a friend of his encouraged him to send it to a publisher in New York.
7.
Jack Prelutsky wrote poems to go with the drawings at the last minute.
8.
Jack Prelutsky met with Susan Hirschman, and was amazed when they wanted his work; not the drawings that took six months to draw, but the poems which took two hours.
9.
Jack Prelutsky was 24 at the time, and the poems appeared in his first book, A Gopher in the Garden and Other Animal Poems, in 1967.
10.
Jack Prelutsky has written more than 50 poetry collections, including Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep, It's Halloween, The Mean Old Mean Hyena, and Something BIG Has Been Here.
11.
Jack Prelutsky has compiled numerous children's anthologies comprising poems of others.
12.
Jack Prelutsky has set his poems to music on the audio versions of his anthologies.
13.
Jack Prelutsky's combined works have sold over a million copies and been translated into many languages.