"My Brother Was an Only Child," adapted from a book he privately printed in 1947 and sent to 400 of his friends, stayed on the bestseller lists for months in 1959. Some of his books, including "Shut Up and Eat Your Snowshoes" (1970), were set in Northern Ontario, where Jack and Reiko Douglas lived for several years after purchasing a wilderness lodge on Bird Lake near Killarney Provincial Park in 1968. The town of Chinookville in the Northern Ontario books is based on the Ontario city of Sudbury. The book "The Neighbors Are Scaring My Wolf" (1968) was based on his experiences living in New Canaan, Connecticut.