A Legacy of Laughter

Photograph by the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation

David Saltzman’s dying wish was to have published the children’s book he wrote and illustrated as a college student.

Mr. Saltzman didn’t live to see his dream realized — he died a decade ago, at age 22, of Hodgkin’s disease. But his mother, Barbara Saltzman, made it her mission to honor her son’s wish, and in 1995 she began publishing copies of The Jester Has Lost His Jingle, the story of a court jester and his friend, Pharley, who are determined to return laughter to a harried and sullen world.

Since then, the book has taken on a life of its own, becoming the cornerstone of a charity whose dual mission is to promote literacy and to help children with cancer and other diseases better cope with illness.

The Jester and Pharley Phund has donated more than 35,000 copies of the book, with its accompanying Jester and Pharley dolls, to hospitals, literacy programs, shelters for battered women and children, and other organizations that help children in need — including 24,000 dolls and 600 books that were purchased by the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation and distributed to pediatric oncology centers across the country.

The charity recently published a curriculum guide for teachers interested in using The Jester Has Lost His Jingle in the classroom. The guide was largely compiled from the lesson plans of teachers across the country who already were using the book in their classrooms and who had passed along their ideas to Ms. Saltzman over the past several years.

“I always knew the book would touch people, but to see it constantly unfolding like a flower and continuing to touch more and more people has been so gratifying,” she says.

Here, a volunteer dressed in jester garb visits with a young cancer patient at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, in California.