Jerome M. Beatty Jr. (December 9, 1916 – July 31, 2002) was a twentieth-century American author of children's literature.
Beatty served in the United States Army, achieving the rank of corporal, and is buried at the Massachusetts National Cemetery.
Arguably, Beatty's most popular works are the Matthew and Maria Looney books, a science fiction series for children.
Matthew and Maria Looney are a brother and sister who live on the Moon, part of an alien civilization of people who, as it turns out, are a lot like us Earthlings.
The series was first published in the early 1960s, at the dawn of the Space Age, and is clearly influenced by that era.