OTHER PEOPLE'S BIRTHDAYS / / / BILL PEET

I've decided to resurrect this series to celebrate the birthday of a man named Bill Peet. His birthday was on Friday, and if he was still alive, he would have turned 101.

You don't recognize his name? It's a pity, because he wrote and illustrated some of the best children's books out there: stories about trains and dragons and animals who run away from the circus or accidentally set their hair on fire. I grew up on these stories, enthralled by the things that lurked in Bill Peet's dark forests and his narrations of the secret, complex lives of creatures both real and imagined. Sometimes when I asked to have a book read to me, I was told that I could choose any book as long as it was a book by Bill Peet. Those were the best ones anyway, so I never minded.

Friday was also, coincidentally, the anniversary of the day that Bill Peet left his job at Disney. Before his career as a children's author, he worked as an animator and storywriter for many of the most iconic of the Disney studios animated movies: Cinderella, Dumbo, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, 101 Dalmatians. He was the mind behind The Sword in the Stone, the person who drew Merlin to resemble Walt Disney and who gave the wizard Disney's own softhearted-grump persona. They became friends of a sort, Bill Peet and Walt Disney. During the early stages of developing The Jungle Book, they quarreled and parted ways. It was the last movie that either of them worked on.

Today I baked a cake with chocolate frosting in remembrance of the man whose stories filled my childhood. Here's to you, Bill Peet. Here's to your fantastic creatures and their amazing lives, to the pictures and words that helped shape my idea of what a story ought to be.

And three cheers for having an excuse to bake a cake!

To see my other celebrations of literary birthdays, click here.