If you are a lover of books, you may often find yourself, as I do, turning a book over in your hands, looking not only for the author’s name or the designer credit, but at the spine where the publisher’s name is printed. These are the books I most admire, the titles and pages that have shaped my life and helped me grow. And there’s one name, in particular, that has been remarkably consistent:
When I was little, I used to quiz my younger siblings with BrainQuest decks on long car rides. My older brother and I diligently worked through the pages of Kids’ Big Book of Games. We flipped through a well-worn copy of All I Need to Know I Learned from My Cat, sure that several of the cats featured had to be ours. We crafted from books like Snips and Snails and Walnut Whales and nerded out building the skeleton from the Bones Book & Skeleton (the original edition). We went on family hikes with the Birds and Trees Fandex tucked into our backpacks; my college roommates and I engaged in existential ruminations over a tattered copy of The Book of Questions; and I consulted 1000 Places before I went on vacation to Puerto Rico. When I became pregnant years later, I turned, as many do, to What to Expect When You’re Expecting. And today, copies of Sandy Boynton’s Belly Button Book and Pajama Time and Rufus Butler Seder’s Gallop! are in constant rotation when I read to my toddler before bed. These are books that one can live by.
On Sunday morning, the founder and publisher of the company whose name is printed on the spine of my two books and countless more titles that have impacted my childhood and my life, died at his home in New York City.
Peter Workman‘s passion for books, for ideas, for trying the unexpected and having faith in the unlikely, was infectious for those of us lucky to have worked with him. He was a generous spirit, a visionary publisher, a wise teacher, a brave dreamer, and an extraordinary human. He will be missed by so many.
May his spirit and vision continue to live through the fine works that populate our bookshelves and engage our minds.
