Weighing in at 190 pages, Bill Peet: An Autobiography
I started it yesterday afternoon, and after 45 minutes or so I had to close it and do something else. “What do you think?” I asked the girls.
“Well,” my 7-year-old replied, “it’s kind of… boring.”
“Oh. Well, we can change to a different book. We don’t have to finish this one if you’re not enjoying it,” I said.
“No. I want to finish it,” she said flatly. “But who would have thought that someone who writes those great stories had such a boring life?”
Yet today both girls brought it to me again, and I spent another hour and a half reading till I was hoarse, and finished it. I offered them chances to quit, take a break, do something else, whatever — but they didn’t tire of it. Strange though it may sound, “boring” is apparently not a critical judgment of the book.
“Boring” isn’t the word I would choose, though perhaps it caught me off guard by being more melancholy and self-revelatory (in spots) than I was expecting. Peet’s childhood was not the happiest, and he relates this, along with his professional stresses as an artist and story man for Walt Disney (the only storyman Disney ever commissioned to do the storyboards for a full-length picture, and he ended up doing it for two). It’s extensively illustrated, and, like his stories, well-paced.
My daughters and I were both drawn in by this story that contains so many of the features that make biography such a compelling genre. The story of Peet’s development as an artist struggling to come into his own, his persistence through adversity, the social history the book includes, and even the personal elements that find their way into his stories and drawings constitute valuable knowledge for any budding artist, and help to flesh out our appreciation — even affection — for this favorite storyteller. You can visit a website devoted to Bill Peet’s life and work here.
I like the idea that my children are discovering not just favorite books, but favorite authors. It emphasizes for them that books are human creations that take an author’s unique perspective, experience, and giftedness, and weave them together into something intentional, pleasurable, meaningful, and beautiful. This is the second biography we’ve read together (the other was a Rookie bio of Laura Ingalls Wilder), and at this point I’m ready to make it a deliberate goal to investigate other writers. Heroes come in all varieties, but the best ones are those people we admire who offer their experience to us across the page, not just through whatever finished, extraordinary product signifies their success, but through their tales of the ordinary and sometimes “boring” process that leads up to it.
I’m so glad you reviewed this. I’m hoping to do a survey of artists/authors for co-op this winter and Bill Peet was on the top of my list.
My kids all seemed a bit older when they discovered a favorite author. My 13 yr old current is Brian Jacques.
Hope you’ll write a review, or pop back and let me know what you think of this if you use it. My guess is that it’s written for slightly older children than mine — maybe 4-6th grade? But it worked fine as a read-aloud for us.
Oh, neat, Janet. This sounds interesting. I still haven’t read the book. My son, who is 9, has favorite authors, too: Jeff Smith (of the Bone series), Jim Davis (Garfield), and Patricia Polacco. Polacco’s picture-book autobiography is a nice read–”Firetalking” from Richard C. Owen Publishers. Poet Janet Wong’s “Before It Wriggles Away” is another good one, from the same publisher.
Esme Raji Codell–of “How to Get Your Child to Love Reading” fame–just wrote up a number of new picture-book biographies at her blog. She’s got lots of resources there, too. Her blog is at http://planetesme.blogspot.com/
I just thought of one more: Snowflake Bentley, by Jacqueline Briggs Martin. Beautifully illustrated book about the man who figured out how to photograph snowflakes. The former librarian at my son’s school used the book to introduce kindergartners to biographies.
As always, I enjoy reading your blog!
The feeling is mutual!
Thanks for the great resources. I’m looking forward to exploring!
Bill Peet was one of my favorite illustrators when I was a child. I didn’t know he’d written an autobiography. And I’m going to check out that site you gave now. Thanks!
Great review – thanks!
“Boring is apparently not a critical judgment.” Super!
My kids devour biographies, despite the fact that I for one have never been able to get into them…
Thank you for the wonderful review and honest thoughts of the book. Now I want to read it.
I hope I can make the time to review “The Art of Eric Carle” which is a retrospective of his work (half the book) and an autobiography, published in 1996 (before he opened his museum so none of that is in the book). I really loved the book but have not read it to my kids. It also discusses his childhood, World War II (he was in Germany at the time) and how he came to be an artist. I am not saying I’d not have my kids read it or read it aloud just that so far I just read it for myself and loved the book. I like stories of the lives of artists and writers that tell their story and how they came to be able to hone their craft and be able to finally devote their career to that craft.
[...] (Think and Make It Happen)63. Lazygal (The Knife of Never Letting Go)64. Lazygal (The Crow Road)65. Janet (Bill Peet: An Autobiography)66. Janet (1984)67. melydia (The Orchid [...]