'Guess How Much I Love You' author Sam McBratney dead at 77

Irish author Sam McBratney, whose 'Guess How I Much Love You" became bedtime reading for millions of families, has died. – AP

Sam McBratney, the Irish children's author whose picture story of ever-wider and higher devotion Guess How I Much Love You" became bedtime reading for millions of families, has died.

Candlewick Press announced that McBratney died Friday at age 77. Additional details were not immediately available. His death comes less than two weeks before the publication of Will You Be My Friend?, a companion to his 1994 classic, which has sold more than 50 million copies and has been translated into 57 languages.