NEW YORK: Sam McBratney, the Irish children’s author whose picture story of ever-wider and higher devotion Guess How I Much Love You” became bedtime reading for millions of families, has died.
Candlewick Press announced that McBratney died Friday at age 77. Additional details were not immediately available. His death comes less than two weeks before the publication of Will You Be My Friend?”, a companion to his 1994 classic, which has sold more than 50 million copies and has been translated into 57 languages.
“Sam McBratney was a profoundly lovely human being,” Karen Lotz, group managing director of Candlewick’s parent company Walker Books Group, said in a statement Monday. You could recognize his voice in a moment he was an exceptionally talented wordsmith and always knew exactly what children would…