Bernard Wiseman

Morris and Boris: Three Stories (1974) Front Cover^[1]

Bernard Wiseman (26 August 1922 – 11 January 1995) was an American author of children's books. He wrote Morris and Boris: Three Stories (1974) and other children's books. He was active from 1958 to 1995.^[2][3]

Early Years

Bernard Wiseman was born in Brooklyn, NY on August 26, 1922 in the Canarsie area. He joined the Coast Guard during WWII which was part of the Navy He rose to the rank of Bosun’s Mate and saw action in the Atlantic theater on a destroyer escort.

After being honorably discharged in 1945, he began working as a cartoonist in New York City. He was often published in New Yorker Magazine and other well known magazines including Playboy. He also wrote for Boys’ Life Magazine, creating a regular series called Sir Nervous Norman, with tongue in cheek tales of a medieval knight who was a little too scared for his own good.

in the late 1950s and early 1960s he began writing and illustrating early reader children’s books. His first major title was The Log and Admiral Frog. He went on to publish over 80 books, the most well known were the Morris the Moose series. Morris and his pal Boris the Bear had lots of fun adventures children could relate to. They had an Abbott and Costello relationship with lots of fun puns being thrown about. Adults enjoyed reading these books to their young children due to his use of humor.

In 1977, Wiseman and his wife Susan and stepson Peter moved to Melbourne, FL. There he had two sons of his own, Michael and Andrew (who was named after his good friend Andy Lesson, the Editor of Boys’ Life).

Wiseman passed in 1995 and is interred in Arlington National Cemetery.

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