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Amy Krouse Rosenthal, a prolific children’s book author, memoirist and public speaker who, dying of cancer, found an extraordinarily large readership this month with a column in The New York Times titled “You May Want to Marry My Husband,” died on Monday at her home in Chicago. She was 51.

The cause was ovarian cancer, which she learned she had in September 2015, her agent, Amy Rennert, said.

Ms. Rosenthal’s bittersweet paean to her spouse of 26 years appeared as a Modern Love column in the online Style section of The Times on March 3 and in the Sunday newspaper section on March 5.

The column has drawn almost four and a half million readers online.

“I want more time with Jason,” she wrote. “I want more time with my children. I want more time sipping martinis at the Green Mill Jazz Club on Thursday nights. But that is not going to happen. I probably have only a few days left being a person on this planet. So why I am doing this?

“I am wrapping this up on Valentine’s Day,” she continued, “and the most genuine, non-vase-oriented gift I can hope for is that the right person reads this, finds Jason, and another love story begins.”

Her husband said in a statement afterward, “When I read her words for the first time, I was shocked at the beauty, slightly surprised at the incredible prose given her condition and, of course, emotionally ripped apart.”

Since 2005, Ms. Rosenthal has written 28 spirited children’s picture books, two quirky, poignant memoirs (“Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal,” in 2016, and an alphabetized “Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life,” in 2005); delivered TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Talks and NPR commentaries; and produced short films and YouTube videos of what she called social experiments, with titles like “ATM: Always Trust Magic,” “The Money Tree” and “The Beckoning of Lovely.”

“I tend to believe whatever you decide to look for you will find, whatever you beckon will eventually beckon you,” she told one audience.

She beckoned her readers and viewers. In a video called “17 Things I Made” — among them were her books and even a peanut butter and jelly sandwich — she welcomed fans to join her at Millennium Park in Chicago, on Aug. 8, 2008, at 8:08 p.m., to make an 18th thing. Hundreds showed up.

“Amy ran at life full speed and heart first,” Maria Modugno, her editor at Random House, said in a phone interview. “Her writing was who she was.”

She started writing ad copy after graduating from Tufts University in 1987. After nine years at Foote, Cone & Belding (now FCB), Ms. Rosenthal was on maternity leave with her two toddler sons and infant daughter at McDonald’s when she experienced what she called a “McEpiphany,” deciding to become an author.

What she described as her plastic fork in the road led to countless dead ends, however, until she published “Little Pea,” about a pod denied his favorite dessert (spinach) until he finished all his candy (which he detested). The book received favorable reviews, and her course was set. Her other books included “Spoon,” “Duck! Rabbit!” and “Little Oink.”

In The New York Times Book Review in 2009 Bruce Handy said of her work: “For all I know, she may suffer torment upon torment in front of a blank screen, but the results read as if they were a pleasure to write.” He added, “Her books radiate fun the way tulips radiate spring: they are elegant and spirit-lifting.”

Amy Renee Krouse was born on April 29, 1965, in Chicago to Paul Krouse and the former Ann Wolk, both publishers. Both survive her.

Besides her husband and parents, she is survived by her sons, Justin and Miles; her daughter, Paris; her sisters, Katie Froelich and Beth Kaufmann; and her brother, Joe Krouse.

“I was simply born with a fondness for letters and language and predisposed to enjoy playing around with them and it,” Ms. Rosenthal wrote in a memoir.

Ms. Rennert, her agent, said Ms. Rosenthal had completed seven more picture books before her death, including a collaboration with her daughter called “Dear Girl.”

But even before her diagnosis, she suggested that her energy and imagination were not boundless. Her favorite line from literature, she once said, was in Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town,” as spoken by the character Emily as she bids the world goodbye: “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”

When she reached 40, Ms. Rosenthal began calculating how many days she had left until she turned 80.

“How many more times, then, do I get to look at a tree?” she asked. “Let’s just say it’s 12,395. Absolutely, that’s a lot, but it’s not infinite, and I’m thinking anything less than infinite is too small a number and not satisfactory. At the very least, I want to look at trees a million more times. Is that too much to ask?”