Sherred Willcox Adams

Sherred Willcox Adams was an American author born in Charleston, West Virginia, in 1872 and died in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1960. Reliable online records for the author are quite sparse, but library and public-domain sources consistently connect the name with the children’s book Five Little Friends.

That book was first published in 1922 by The Macmillan Company, with illustrations by Maud Fuller Petersham and Miska Petersham. Its story follows Bob, Betty, Paul, Peggy, and little Dot through school and vacation episodes, with a strong focus on friendship, pets, and the pleasures of everyday childhood.

Because so little biographical material is easily confirmed, Adams is remembered mainly through the work itself rather than through a well-documented public life. The continued presence of Five Little Friends in library catalogs and Project Gutenberg has helped keep that charming, old-fashioned children’s world available to new readers.