John Steinbeck allowing Steinbeck to spend a full day on the set of "The Grapes of Wrath" and the next day on the set of "Of Mice and Men." In the 1930s and 1940s, Ed Ricketts strongly influenced Steinbeck's writing. Steinbeck frequently took small trips with Ricketts along the California coast to give himself time off from his writing and to collect biological specimens, which Ricketts sold for a living. Their joint book about a collecting expedition to the Gulf of California in 1940, which was part travelogue and part natural history, published just as the U.S. entered World War II, never
John Peterson (author) John Peterson (author) John Lawrence Peterson (February 10, 1924 – November 2002) was an American author of children's books. He is best known as the creator of "The Littles", which began as a series of books in 1967, later adapted into an animated cartoon series by DiC Entertainment. Peterson was also the author of "The Secret Hide-Out", a popular Scholastic Books title in the 1960s and 1970s. Peterson was born in Bradford, Pennsylvania on February 10, 1924, and attended Pratt Institute before volunteering and serving as a paratrooper of the 11th Airborne Division in World War II. After the war,