Jacquelyn Reinach

Jacquelyn Reinach, a writer, composer, television producer and co-creator of the ''Sweet Pickles'' series of children's books, which featured characters like Accusing Alligator and Smarty Stork....

Although Ms. Reinach wrote more than 50 books and 600 songs, several musical shows and educational productions and contributed to Shari Lewis's television series ''Lamb Chop Play Along'' on PBS, she was best known for the ''Sweet Pickles'' books first published in 1976.

The series, which she created with Richard Hefter, a writer and illustrator, and Ruth Lerner Perle, based on a menagerie of alphabetical animals with gentle foibles, sold more than 50 million copies. It also secured her a substantial fortune as the books and marketing tie-ins went on to generate more than $200 million in worldwide sales. The books, which went out of print in the mid-1990's, are now traded regularly on eBay and may be revived under a new publishing contract, Mr. Hefter said.

Mr. Hefter said the phenomenon began with the notion of ''a peer group with no authority figures.''

''There'd be no parents, no family, just alphabetic characters equally divided between male and female,'' he said. ''Because Jackie was a psychologist by training, each character was given a specific personality trait.''

''The behaviors were never corrected,'' he added. ''Goof-Off Goose always goofs off, and others learn to accept it. Accusing Alligator learns a lesson but remains the same. They're all lovable in their foibles, and none are menacing.''

Ms. Reinach came up with the series title to suggest that life's problems were resolvable pickles, Mr. Hefter said. ''Holt, Reinhart hated the name, so we kept it,'' he said. The publisher sold 10 million copies, and the Weekly Reader Book Club, owned by Xerox, sold 40 million more.

The first 26 books used characters going through the alphabet -- Bashful Bear, Clever Camel, all the way to Zany Zebra -- but when a demanding public clamored for more, the partners made up 14 new stories with the same cast.

Jacquelyn Krasne Reinach was born in Omaha, grew up in Beverly Hills and graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles before moving to New York. She wrote scripts for the Fran Allison ''Learn at Home'' television series and worked with Shari Lewis on a series of ''Headstart'' books for McGraw-Hill. She won an Emmy in 1993 for a young people's anti-smoking program, ''Know the Facts: Keep Your Power,'' and wrote and produced a traveling school program for the American Heart Association....

Among her 600 songs was ''Liberation, Now!'' which became the feminist anthem of the Women's Strike for Peace in 1970. (That year she also wrote a 300-recipe feminist cookbook: ''How to Enjoy the Leisure Life in a Beach House, Mountain Cabin, Lake Shack, Ski Chalet, Trailer, Country Home or City Apartment.'') Another song, ''The Family,'' became the theme of the United Nations' Year of the Family in 1994....

Source: excepted from author's New York Times obituary