By Bonnie Withers

This week, I stumbled upon a website called Prabook, trademark of World Biographical Dictionary, which exists, it states, to “Preserve Those Who Shaped History Without Making Headlines”. One of the entries caught my attention. If Lydia Louise Ann Very didn’t shape history, she shaped books! If you have spent time with toddler books, you know what I mean—cardboard books in the shape of animals, houses, etc. Lydia was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1823, and lived there until she died in 1901. As a “sane, industrious, spinster”, she taught primary school for thirty years. She wrote and published poetry, children’s books, and most notably, a version of Little Red Riding Hood, a book cut in the shape of the little girl in her red cape with the wolf at her side. She is considered the inventor of this format of children’s books which continues to be popular. 

I really can’t improve upon or paraphrase this description offered by her biographer: Short, plump, brown-haired, energetic, Very was the hardest worker of her Unitarian family and its most ardent humanitarian.