We were all saddened to hear of the death of Jeremy Strong. A prolific and popular author, he had a wonderful gift for humour, which saw him crowned Puffin’s King of Comedy. Inventive, silly and laugh-out-loud funny, his stories have encouraged thousands of children to pick up a book.

Full of fun, jokes, eccentric characters and madcap storylines, Jeremy wrote over 100 books including The Hundred Mile An Hour Dog which was chosen as a Puffin Modern Classic, the ridicously funny Beware! Killer Tomatoes and a raft of books for dyslexic and struggling readers published by Barrington Stoke.

Here are five things that you probably didn't know about Jeremy Strong:

* Jeremy Strong used to be Headmaster to author, Steven Butler who wrote the Nothing to See Here Hotel series. Steven thanks Jeremy for helping to turn him from a reluctant reader, to an avid reader and finally a writer.

* Jeremy's first book was called Smith's Tail and it was about a cat.

* Jeremy once worked in a bakery, putting the jam into three thousand doughnuts every night.

* Jeremy started writing stories when he was eight years old. When he was eighteen he started writing very serious stories for adults, but none of them were published. By the time he was twenty-one he was writing stories for children, and quickly realized that he loved writing funny stories and making people laugh.

* If Jeremy wasn't a writer he would have wanted to play the piano really, really well, or be a terrific artist.

Scroll down for a selection of Jeremy's books, and you can find more books on his author page. With our thanks and appreciation to the King of Comedy, Jeremy Strong.