Children's Books
Although Walt Disney was not a draftsman or animator himself, he was in charge of the major decisions on the artistic side. He reviewed all the work and gave it the final go-ahead. As they were both strong-willed and passionately creative men, Peet and Disney quarreled frequently about parts in the films such as the dancing/romance scene in Sleeping Beauty. Peet left the company on January 29, 1964, which was his birthday, following an especially heated argument with Walt on The Jungle Book.
Post-Disney, Bill turned his attention to writing and illustrating children's books. Bill developed many of his ideas from bedtime stories he had told his children. Much of the success Peet's stories have enjoyed is due to the memorable themes they contain: trying when there's not much obvious hope, not allowing taunting of others to prevent individual success, finding compromise in solutions and others. Unlike most other children's authors, Peet did not dumb down the vocabulary of his stories, but somehow managed to include enough context to make the meaning of difficult words obvious. Both the illustrations and the stories themselves easily capture the attention of almost all children. These features make these books excellent for even the most reluctant of readers.
Peet died in 2002, at the age of 87.
Read more about this topic: Bill Peet
Famous quotes containing the words children and/or books:
“If there is a species which is more maltreated than children, then it must be their toys, which they handle in an incredibly off-hand manner.... Toys are thus the end point in that long chain in which all the conditions of despotic high-handedness are in play which enchain beings one to another, from one species to another—cruel divinities to their sacrificial victims, from masters to slaves, from adults to children, and from children to their objects.”
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“No common-place is ever effectually got rid of, except by essentially emptying one’s self of it into a book; for once trapped in a book, then the book can be put into the fire, and all will be well. But they are not always put into the fire; and this accounts for the vast majority of miserable books over those of positive merit.”
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