{"id":320285,"date":"2026-11-03T14:43:18","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T14:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/320285\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T14:43:18","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T14:43:18","slug":"childrens-book-writer-illustrator-who-reconnected-after-25-years-visit-69-news-at-sunrise-lehigh-valley-regional-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/320285\/","title":{"rendered":"Children\u2019s book writer, illustrator who reconnected after 25 years visit 69 News at Sunrise | Lehigh Valley Regional News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SALISBURY TWP., Pa. &#8211; They met in high school almost 50 years ago, never knowing they would come together to write and publish books for children.<\/p>\n<p>Joe Swarctz is the creator and illustrator, and Ralph Greco Jr. is the writer of The Echo City Capers books. They joined 69 News at Sunrise with more on their partnership.<\/p>\n<p>They lost touch for 25 years after high school. They reconnected through a friend. By their second meeting, they were already talking about the ideas for their books.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019ve produced nine books in nine years.<\/p>\n<p>Swarctz and Greco Jr. are popular in schools across the Lehigh Valley. They interact with the students, who participate in the book\u2019s songs, during their school visits. Greco Jr. wrote the songs for the books.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of every visit, the students draw the book\u2019s characters.<\/p>\n<p>\nCopyright 2026 Maranatha Broadcasting Co., Inc.. All Rights Reserved.\n<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SALISBURY TWP., Pa. &#8211; They met in high school almost 50 years ago, never knowing they would come&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,805,3705],"class_list":["post-320285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-lehighvalley","tag-sunrise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}