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Walter Dean Myers, a best-selling and prolific children's author who spent much of his adult life writing realistic and accessible stories about crime, war and life in the streets, died July 1 at a hospital in Manhattan.He died at the age of 76.

His publisher did not reveal the cause of his death.He was a resident of Jersey City.

A onetime troublemaker who dropped out of high school, Mr. Myers completed more than 100 books and was a leading advocate for including other races in children's books.

The National Ambassador for Young People's Literature was created in part by the Library of Congress.He was an unofficial ambassador before that, visiting schools and prisons around the country.

The books were usually narrated by teenagers who were trying to make the right choices.The 17-year-old hiding from the police in "Dope Sick" and the boarding school student who learns his girlfriend is hooked on drugs are two examples.In the crime story "Monster" he left doubt over whether the narrator was guilty.

He was sent to Harlem when he was 18 months old and raised in a foster home by Herbert and Florence Dean, a janitor, and a cleaning woman.He took the pen name Walter Dean to honor his foster parents.

He was a basketball star but also a stutterer who was teased often and fought back.He was happy to sit and read.

Mr. Myers wrote in his memoir, "Bad Boy," that he moved easily between two distinct voices.Establishing myself as a male was one of the things that had to do with sports....The other voice that I had from my street friends and teammates was more focused on the vocabulary of literature.

Mr.Myers was accepted to one of Manhattan's best public schools.He was too poor to afford new clothes and couldn't keep up with the work.Mr. Myers never graduated despite skipping school for weeks at a time.

He told the New York Times that his home life became tense.A foster father went into a depression after his uncle was killed.His foster mother was an alcoholic.He spent a lot of time drinking heavily.He said it was a "drunken stumble through life, with me holding on just enough to survive."

He told the Associated Press that he knew what falling off the cliff meant.I was considered a very bright kid and dropped out of school.

He worked as a factory worker, a messenger on Wall Street and a construction worker after serving in the Army.He was anxious to be a writer after reading James Baldwin.

His first book, "Where Does the Day Go?", was published in 1969 after he won a contest for children's literature by people of color.

His visits with students and inmates gave him the chance to help others and inspired some of his work.Mr. Myers met a kid who was afraid to get out of jail because he would only get in trouble again.

He remembered a boy who would talk about the crimes he committed in the third person, as if someone else had committed them.

All the guys could do that.He told the Associated Press that they could separate themselves from their crimes.My life has been different so my strategy might be different.

He wrote a novel about a young man who enlisted in the military because of patriotism after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Leonard S. Marcus wrote a review for the New York Times.The main characters have yet to finish their stories....We don't know who will make it home.