It’s the first day back to school for children in our area and our household.

It’s also the birthday of cartoonist and children’s book author Syd Hoff (1912-2004), best known for his bestselling children’s book Danny and the Dinosaur (1958), in which a boy rides some sort of sauropod dinosaur out of a natural history museum for a day of fun and adventure. (The dinosaur is probably an Apatosaurus, which back in the day we would have called a Brontosaurus. The hell with it: it’s a Brontosaurus. That used to be my favorite dinosaur and it still is. And while I’m at it, Love Live Pluto.)

Hoff was born in the Bronx, New York, to Jewish parents, a salesman and a housewife. He had two siblings and named the main character of Danny and the Dinosaur after his brother, who protected him from bullies and once even saved him from drowning in a lake (sydhoff.org). He was the only artist in his family and his mother posted his drawings all over the walls of their home. In 1917, during WWI, Hoff drew Kaiser Wilhelm’s picture in chalk in the gutter; then all the boys peed on it and everyone cheered. (There’s your edifying moment for the day.)

Hoff hated school and was terrible at everything from geometry to rope climbing in gym. But in high school, the famous comic artist Milt Gross came for a special assembly, and Hoff was chosen to participate by illustrating a talk by a drama club member as it was being given. When Hoff finished, Milt Gross declared, “Kid, someday you’ll be a great cartoonist!”

Hoff eventually dropped out of school. When Hoff was 16, his brother, by then a taxi driver, dropped him off at the National Academy of Design, saying, “You’re always drawing, now learn how.” At 18, he sold his first cartoon to the New Yorker. By the time the U.S. entered WWII, Hoff was doing a comic strip called Tuffy that was so popular he was deferred from military duty: Tuffy was deemed essential for the nation’s morale. Hoff would eventually publish hundreds of cartoons in the New Yorker, over 60 children’s books in the HarperCollins I Can Read series, and 10 collections of cartoons for adults.

Hoff died at 91, survived by only one of his three daughters.

Have a changeable, blowsy September Wednesday, consider a little sushi for lunch as compensation for any empty nests you may be experiencing, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.