It could be easy to not recognize that Margaret Bloy Graham was the illustrator of “Harry The Dirty Dog” (HarperCollins Publishers), one of the most beloved children’s books of the past century. Margaret Bloy Graham about a decade ago. (Courtesy) He ran to a corner of the garden and started to dig furiously. Soon he jumped away from the hole barking short, happy barks.

It was wonderful to be home. After dinner, Harry fell asleep in his favorite place, happily dreaming of how much fun it had been getting dirty. He slept so soundly, he didn't even feel the scrubbing brush he'd hidden under his pillow. Harry the Dirty Dog has become a classic, entertaining young readers for decades. Perfect for young fans of dogs...especially ones who also don't always want a bath! Her books are very humorous. Her drawings are very humorous. She was a very serious person,” Hagen says. “She was a voracious reader, mostly nonfiction. She loved to talk about books that she read, theater, movies.” big dogs were playing with 1 little dog. How many dogs were playing together? Draw a picture and write a number sentence with a number bond to match. She had an eye,” Hagen says. “She always did.” "Harry the Dirty Dog," illustrations by Margaret Bloy Graham, words by Gene Zion, 1956. (Courtesy)

Their first book, All Falling Down, a story inspired by some sketches of Graham’s, was published in 1951. A couple of similarly simple stories for very young children followed before the publication of Harry the Dirty Dog, which became the first of their books to be available in the UK when it was published by Bodley Head in 1960. The Harry titles were popular from the start and their success in the US was celebrated by the publication of a 50th anniversary edition in 2006. Although there were many other things to do, Harry began to wonder if his family thought that he had really run away. Further adventures of Harry included No Roses for Harry! (1958) and Harry by the Sea (1965). In addition, Graham and Zion wrote some stand-alone books, such as Dear Garbage Man (1957, published in the UK as Dear Dustman) and The Meanest Squirrel I Ever Met (1962). Look throughout the story at all the different animals (dogs, birds, cats, spider, caterpillar, butterfly, etc.). Which ones make good pets? You may even want to take this one step further and think of other animals (elephant, flamingo, etc.) that would probably not make good pets and discuss why.

Love of nature was a recurrent theme in Graham’s books—from “The Storm Book” (words by Charlotte Zolotow, 1952), an ode to rain, lightning and rainbows, to “Really Spring” (words by Zion, 1956), about a city so anxious for the arrival of the season that everyone paints the town with green leaves. "Be Nice to Spiders," illustrations and words by Margaret Bloy Graham, 1967. (Courtesy) In short, this modern classic of 20th century literature subsumes our bourgeois preconceptions in a tale of real drama and urgency, a creative maelstrom in which modern angst is conceptualised in canine form. For it is not a Scotty per se, rather it is a cypher for man's eternal (non)interconnectedness with the natural world, realised with Zion's characteristic perspicuity, its disingenuous indirectness a paradoxical signifier of its vital directness and its relevance, in real terms, to the anguished unreality of the modern - and yet forebodingly ancient - the disjunction of Man and his nearest (this terminology rapaciously encompassing Woman and her nearest) post-Jungian-evolutionary relation.In 1987, a live action short film based on the book was produced and released. It was directed by Peter Matulavich and written by Gene Zion and Matulavich. Graham’s books often feature visionaries who bump up against business as usual—at least for a while—including her illustrations for a 1954 children’s biography of Henry David Thoreau, “To a Different Drum,” authored by Charles Norman. Harry the Dirty Dog has been recognized by the National Education Association as an all-time top-100 children's book. It has also been welcomed by a new generation at home, as Betty White's 2020 reading of the story on StorylineOnline has been viewed more than 8 million times.