Nancy McArthur (October 30, 1931 – July 15, 2020) was an American children's

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

. Living in

Berea, Ohio Berea ( ) is a city in Cuyahoga County in the U.S. state of Ohio and is a western suburb of Cleveland. The population was 19,093 at the 2010 census. Berea is home to Baldwin Wallace University, as well as the training facility for the Cleveland ...

, she was a part-time journalism professor at

Baldwin-Wallace College Baldwin Wallace University (BW) is a private university in Berea, Ohio. It was founded in 1845 as Baldwin Institute by Methodist businessman John Baldwin. The school merged with nearby German Wallace College in 1913 to become Baldwin-Wallace Co ...

. She wrote fourteen books, nine of which form a

series Series may refer to: People with the name * Caroline Series (born 1951), English mathematician, daughter of George Series * George Series (1920–1995), English physicist Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Series, the ordered sets used in ...

called ''The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks''. The series follows the lives of two young brothers, Michael and Norman, along with their

sentient Sentience is the capacity to experience feelings and sensations. The word was first coined by philosophers in the 1630s for the concept of an ability to feel, derived from Latin '' sentientem'' (a feeling), to distinguish it from the ability to ...

pet plants, Stanley and Fluffy. The first book in this series is the most popular book written by McArthur. She reworked this book into a

play Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * Pla ...

in 2000. She died on July 15, 2020, from

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

Works

* ''Megan Gets a Dollhouse'' (1988) * ''Pickled Peppers'' (1988) * '' The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks'' (1988) * ''The Adventure of the Buried Treasure'' (1990) * ''The Return of the Plant That Ate Dirty Socks'' (1990) * ''The Adventure of the Backyard Sleepout'' (1992) * ''The Escape Of The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks'' (1992) * ''The Secret Of The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks'' (1993) * ''More Adventures Of The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks'' (1994) * ''The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks Goes Up In Space'' (1995) * ''The Mystery Of The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks'' (1996) * ''The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks Gets A Girlfriend'' (1997) * ''The Adventure of the Big Snow'' (1998) * ''The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks Goes Hollywood'' (1999)

References

Deaths from Parkinson's disease Neurological disease deaths in Ohio 20th-century American novelists American children's writers People from Berea, Ohio Baldwin Wallace University alumni American women children's writers American women novelists 20th-century American women writers 1931 births 2020 deaths 21st-century American women {{US-novelist-1930s-stub