Literature of the Americas Literature of the Americas 2541-7894 2542-243X IWL RAS https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-7894-2024-17-222-232 Research Article Articles Is Truman Capote a Children’s Writer? 2024 Copyright © 2026, IWL RAS 2026 The article is devoted to the history of Truman Capote’s children’s poem “Can a Pig Fly”. Truman Capote is well-known as an author for the adult audience; however few readers are aware of the unpublished and the only known Capote’s children work written for the Random House “Beginner Books” easy-to-read series. The series was inspired by success of Theodor Geisel (also known as Doctor Seuss) children’s books. American educational circles of 1950s were under the influence of step-by-step vocabulary expansion of preschoolers and firstgraders. Hence Random House set up severe limitation for vocabulary used by new series writers. Several best-selling adult authors tried but couldn’t come up with anything worthy because they had to stick to a 100 Word List. Capote wrote several manuscripts, and “Can a Pig Fly” is the only almost finished manuscript left. American artist Hillary Knight, well-known by that time due to his works for Eloise series of books by Kay Thompson, made beautiful artworks for this unpublished picture book about the flying pig. 1. Clarke 1988 — Clarke, Gerald. Capote: A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1988. 2. Moates 1989 — Moates, Marianne M. A Bridge of Childhood. Truman Capote’s Southern Years. New York: Henry Holt, 1989. 3. 4. Moroz 2023 — Moroz, Nina. “Dr. Seuss o zveriah i liudiah: opyt karikaturista I illustritovannyie skazki 1930–1950-h gg.” [“Dr. Seuss of Beasts and Men: the Cartoonist’s Experience and the Illustrated Tales of the 1930–1950s”]. Literatura dvukh Amerik, no. 15 (2023): 250–275. (In Russ.) 5. Nel 2007 — Nel, Philip. The Annotated Cat: Under the Hats of Seuss and His Cats. New York: Random House, 2007.