The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk

Donald J. Sobol was born and raised in New York City. He graduated from the Fieldston School in New York City in 1942 and joined the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. After the war, he got a degree from Oberlin College. He worked in New York for several years, working his way up from copy boy to reporter for the New York Sun, and then working for the New York Daily News, and worked there for two years. In the 1950s he moved to Miami to pursue writing full-time. He started writing the Two-Minute Mysteries series in 1959, and he started writing his popular Encyclopedia Brown mystery series for children in 1963. The Mystery Writers of America awarded him a Special Edgar Award for his Encyclopedia Brown series in 1975. In addition to his very popular books for children, Sobol wrote several nonfiction books, and he wrote and contributed to magazines under a variety of pen names. The 29th -- and final -- book in the Encyclopedia Brown series was published three months after Sobol's death in 2012.