But their real education came from home, where their mother, Marjorie, read them to sleep every night. Their father, Thomas, a writer and producer of educational films, read Sarah and Kate headlines from the local paperDeer Ran Over a Car, Car Ran Over A Deerthat continue to haunt them.

While their mother orchestrated the making of papier mache Halloween costumes in the basement (Sarah’s of course were always perfect; Kate’s turned out looking like lumpy oatmeal on a stick with eyes), their father hid out on the third floor of the house, smoking Camels and working on the novel he would one day give his children as a Christmas present (titled The Last Western, 1974.) It is his two middle daughters’ favorite book.

Some of Kate’s second favorite books remain the ones she read as a young girl: The Trumpet of the Swan, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Phantom Tollbooth to name just a few. Sarah was always more taken by the illustrations, especially those by Edward Gorey, Barbara Conney and Garth Williams.. Both loved everything by Roald Dahl and William Pene DuBois.

The Klises hope their novels continue in the tradition of these icons of children literature, who created smart, funny, charmingly irreverent books about smart, funny, charmingly irreverent kids who use their brilliant innocence to triumph over the experience of their often more dimwitted elders.