Jeff Brown, a magazine editor and short-story writer who created Flat Stanley, the two-dimensional hero of an enduring series of children's books, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 77 and lived on the Upper East Side.

My students always liked the Flat Stanley books... I mean who wouldn't want to read about a boy squashed paper-thin by a bulletin board... who possesed the ability to slide under doors and down sewer grates...