Horatio Alger Jr. was an American author who wrote young adult novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to middle-class security and comfort through good works. His writings were characterized by the "rags-to-riches" narrative, which had a formative effect on the United States from 1868 through to his death in 1899.
Sitting Pretty is a 1948 American comedy film directed by Walter Lang from a screenplay by F. Hugh Herbert, adapted from the novel Belvedere by Gwen Davenport. The film stars Robert Young, Maureen O'Hara, and Clifton Webb, about a family who hires the mysterious Lynn Belvedere to babysit their rowdy children.
Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft was an American actor and bass singer. He was well known as one of the booming voices behind Kellogg's Frosted Flakes animated spokesman Tony the Tiger for more than five decades. He was also the uncredited vocalist for the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" from the classic Christmas television special, Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
Karl Jay Shapiro was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1945 for his collection V-Letter and Other Poems. He was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1946.
Frederick Leonard Clark was an American film and television character actor, often cast in authoritative roles.
Eleanor Frances (Butler) Cameron was a children's author and critic. She published 20 books in her lifetime, including The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet (1954) and its sequels, a collection of critical essays called The Green and Burning Tree (1969), and The Court of the Stone Children (1973), which won the U.S. National Book Award in category Children's Books.
Alan Kreider was an American Mennonite historian. He was the American Professor Emeritus of Church History and Mission at the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana. His main interests were mission, worship, peace, and ecclesiastical history. Kreider continued to speak, write and publish in these areas of interest until his death in May 2017.
The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet is a children's science fiction novel written by Eleanor Cameron, illustrated by Robert Henneberger, and published by Little, Brown in 1954. It is set in Pacific Grove, California, and on Basidium, a tiny habitable moon of Earth, invisible from the planet in its orbit 50,000 miles away. The "Mushroom Planet", visited by the protagonists David Topman and Chuck Masterson, is covered in various types of mushrooms and is populated by little green people who are in a state of distress.
David Gorcey was an American actor and the younger brother of actor Leo Gorcey. Gorcey is best known for portraying "Chuck Anderson" in Monogram Pictures' film series The Bowery Boys, and "Pee Wee" in its antecedent The East Side Kids.
Roland Burrage Dixon was an American anthropologist.
Mr. Bass's Planetoid is a 1958 children's science fiction novel by Canadian author Eleanor Cameron. The novel follows The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet (1954) and Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet (1956). The book is illustrated by Louis Darling.
A Mystery for Mr. Bass is a 1960 children's science fiction novel by Canadian author Eleanor Cameron. The novel followed The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet (1954), Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet (1956), Mr. Bass's Planetoid (1958), and it was illustrated by Leonard Shortall.
Time and Mr. Bass is a 1967 children's science fiction novel by Canadian author Eleanor Cameron. The novel followed The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet (1954), Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet (1956), Mr. Bass's Planetoid (1958), A Mystery for Mr. Bass (1960), Jewels from the Moon and the Meteor That Couldn't Stay (1964), and was illustrated by Fred H. Meise. It is the concluding installment of her Mushroom Planet series.
John Smith was an American actor whose career primarily focused on westerns. He had his leading roles in two NBC western television series, Cimarron City and Laramie.
Lester Tremayne was a British actor.
The War With Mr. Wizzle is the fourth installment in the Macdonald Hall book series. Like all the other books in this series, this one was republished in 2003 with new cover art. This installment was given the modified title "The Wizzle War". Additionally, because the book deals largely with technological advancements and discusses computers and software, it was rewritten to reflect the abundance of technology today. For instance, in the 1982 version, the character Mr. Wizzle brings in a large mainframe-like computer known as the Magnetronic 515, which according to Elmer is the most modern computer an institution like Macdonald Hall could have. In the updated 2003 version, the abundance of computers in the school is present, but the character Mr. Wizzle comes up with, instead of a new computer, a new software program that he is determined to run everything with. The book was originally written in 1982 by Gordon Korman.
Jewels from the Moon and The Meteor That Couldn't Stay is a 1964 children's science fiction book written by Eleanor Cameron and illustrated by Vic Dowd. Although the book features characters from Cameron's five Mushroom Planet books, it is tangential to the series. In fact, it is little known even to fans of the series because it was designed as a school reading book and was distributed in that manner by the American Book Company. The book is 64 pages long and features comprehension, discussion, and vocabulary questions after each story.
The year 1956 was marked, in science fiction, by the following events.
