Favorite Childhood Books
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Thomas Rockwell, who guarded the legacy of his father, illustrator Norman Rockwell, and made a name of his own as the author of “How to Eat Fried Worms,” a best-selling children’s novel that has delighted generations of young readers, died Sept. 27 at a hospice center in Danbury, Conn. He was 91.
He had Parkinson’s disease, said his daughter, Abigail Rockwell.
Mr. Rockwell was the second of three sons born to Norman Rockwell, whose nostalgic depictions of Americana, published for decades on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, made him one of the most popular artists of all time….
Young Tom Rockwell was the strapping, striving lad flexing his little-boy biceps before a mirror in “The Muscleman” (1937), according to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass.
He was the grinning mischief-maker sneaking a peek at his sister’s journal in “Secrets (Boy Reading Sister’s Diary)” (1942).
He is represented with a wide smile in the holiday reunion scene of “Christmas Homecoming” (1948) and served as the model for the saucer-eyed young man sporting a mortarboard and bearing a diploma in “The Graduate” (1959).
Abigail Rockwell said that for her father, it was a “tremendous blessing” but also a “heavy burden” to be the son of Norman Rockwell. “Everywhere you go, people introduce you as Norman Rockwell’s son,” Thomas Rockwell once remarked. “And you want to be Tom Rockwell.”……
“How to Eat Fried Worms” was rejected by 23 publishers before it was first published in 1973 with illustrations by Emily McCully. With its irresistible “ick” factor and encouraging message about taking challenges head-on, the book became a favorite among elementary and middle-grade children, one that librarians often pulled off the shelf to spark in reluctant readers the joys of literature.
“The book’s appeal depends on a generous dose of revulsion,” writer Kristopher Tapley observed in the New York Times in 2006. “It makes kids laugh while turning their stomachs just enough to deliver its universal themes.”
“How to Eat Fried Worms” has never gone out of print and was adapted for TV in an animated version in 1985 and for the movie screen as a live-action film in 2006.
Mr. Rockwell wrote two sequels, “How to Fight a Girl” (1987, with illustrations by Gioia Fiammenghi) and “How to Get Fabulously Rich” (1990, illustrated by Anne Canevari Green), both of which follow Billy and his friends in their adventures…….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/10/04/thomas-norman-rockwell-fried-worms/
Today I learned the author’s father was Norman Rockwell
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Thomas Rockwell, who guarded the legacy of his father, illustrator Norman Rockwell, and made a name of his own as the author of “How to Eat Fried Worms,” a best-selling children’s novel that has delighted generations of young readers, died Sept. 27 at a hospice center in Danbury, Conn. He was 91.
He had Parkinson’s disease, said his daughter, Abigail Rockwell.
Mr. Rockwell was the second of three sons born to Norman Rockwell, whose nostalgic depictions of Americana, published for decades on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, made him one of the most popular artists of all time….
Young Tom Rockwell was the strapping, striving lad flexing his little-boy biceps before a mirror in “The Muscleman” (1937), according to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass.
He was the grinning mischief-maker sneaking a peek at his sister’s journal in “Secrets (Boy Reading Sister’s Diary)” (1942).
He is represented with a wide smile in the holiday reunion scene of “Christmas Homecoming” (1948) and served as the model for the saucer-eyed young man sporting a mortarboard and bearing a diploma in “The Graduate” (1959).
Abigail Rockwell said that for her father, it was a “tremendous blessing” but also a “heavy burden” to be the son of Norman Rockwell. “Everywhere you go, people introduce you as Norman Rockwell’s son,” Thomas Rockwell once remarked. “And you want to be Tom Rockwell.”……
“How to Eat Fried Worms” was rejected by 23 publishers before it was first published in 1973 with illustrations by Emily McCully. With its irresistible “ick” factor and encouraging message about taking challenges head-on, the book became a favorite among elementary and middle-grade children, one that librarians often pulled off the shelf to spark in reluctant readers the joys of literature.
“The book’s appeal depends on a generous dose of revulsion,” writer Kristopher Tapley observed in the New York Times in 2006. “It makes kids laugh while turning their stomachs just enough to deliver its universal themes.”
“How to Eat Fried Worms” has never gone out of print and was adapted for TV in an animated version in 1985 and for the movie screen as a live-action film in 2006.
Mr. Rockwell wrote two sequels, “How to Fight a Girl” (1987, with illustrations by Gioia Fiammenghi) and “How to Get Fabulously Rich” (1990, illustrated by Anne Canevari Green), both of which follow Billy and his friends in their adventures…….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/10/04/thomas-norman-rockwell-fried-worms/