Children's Author John R. Gardiner

John Reynolds Gardiner, 61, whose 1980 children's book "Stone Fox" sold more than 3 million copies and was made into a television movie, died March 4 at Kaiser Permanente Anaheim Medical Center in California. He had complications of pancreatitis.

Mr. Gardner, who was born in Los Angeles, never read an entire novel until he was 19, although his parents were educators. He received a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in engineering from UCLA. However, his writing skills lagged.

"At UCLA, I ended up in dumbbell English," Mr. Gardiner wrote in an autobiography on his Web site. For most of the other students in the class, English was a second language. They "could and did get better grades on their compositions than I did," he wrote.

He did have one thing going for him, he said. "The imagination was there."

He kept up his writing while working as a contract engineer specializing in thermodynamics for such aerospace corporations as Rockwell International and McDonnell Douglas. When he was in his late twenties, his brother Ken made a suggestion.

"My brother . . . got me to enroll in a television writing class, taught by an instructor who didn't give a hoot about spelling and grammar, and my writing career began," Mr. Gardiner wrote.

Originally, he wrote "Stone Fox" as a screenplay. In the story, a boy named Willy and his dog, Searchlight, enter a dogsled race hoping to beat an undefeated opponent.

A producer read the script and suggested that Mr. Gardiner turn it into a book, which he did. Seven years later, it was made into an NBC television movie with Buddy Ebsen as the boy's grandfather.

Two more novels, both filled with good-natured humor, were published. "Top Secret" (1985) is about a boy who turns himself into a plant as a science project. "General Butterfingers" (1986) follows a kind but clumsy boy as he helps care for aging war veterans.

Survivors include his wife, Gloria; three daughters; a brother; two sisters; and a granddaughter.