Children's Author Amy Krouse Rosenthal Has Died

Today brings some very sad news: Amy Krouse Rosenthal has died. Rosenthal was the author of more than 30 wonderful books for adults and children — and more recently, the author of the moving essay "You May Want To Marry My Husband," in which she announced her cancer diagnosis, and expressed her wish for her beloved husband to find new love. She died of ovarian cancer on Monday morning.

Throughout her career, Rosenthal has brought so much joy through her writing. One New York Times review claimed that "her books radiate fun the way tulips radiate spring," describing them as "elegant and spirit-lifting." This ability to lift her readers' spirits has shone through all of her work; even in her last essay, in which she broke hearts the world over by wishing for more time with her husband and children, she managed to make us all smile through the tears — finishing her essay with an intentionally black space meant to symbolise a "fresh start" for her husband Jason.

Rosenthal's connection with her readers was unparalleled: she even got a matching tattoo with one reader, a 62-year-old librarian named Paulette. Both of them got the word "more" — which was Rosenthal's first word, and which seems very fitting now. There is so much more that Rosenthal still has to give to the world — to the new readers who may only just have come to her books, to devoted readers like Paulette who will continue revisiting her work and learning more from it each time, and to the children who can grow up reading her inspiring and "spirit-lifting" stories.

In a email from Penguin Random House, Rosenthal's literary agent, Amy Rennert wrote: "Everything Amy did was life and love affirming. She was such a bright light with a great sense of wonder. Amy loved her family. She loved words, ideas, connections. She taught us that life's seemingly small moments are not really small at all. Amy's final essay, written under the most difficult of circumstances, a love letter to her husband Jason, was the ultimate gift to him and also to the rest of us. She leaves behind a legacy of love and beauty and kindness."

This article was updated with the statement from Penguin Random House.