Did you know the tragic children's classic Bridge to Terabithia has an even more heartbreaking backstory? Katherine Paterson, the novel's author, lost a childhood friend to a lightning strike at just eight years old.
Our friends at Mental Floss have compiled 46 other facts about children's books, and fortunately, the rest are much more lighthearted: The Phantom Tollbooth, for example, doesn't have a single illustration of Milo actually in a tollbooth, and Margaret Wise Brown left all the proceeds from Goodnight Moon to her 9-year-old neighbor. In between facts, John Green also throws in a few tidbits about his own works.
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