The Reading Warehouse

Garth Williams is the renowned illustrator of almost one hundred books for children, including the beloved Stuart Little by E. B. White, Bedtime for Frances by Russell Hoban, and the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

He was born in 1912 in New York City but raised in England. He founded an art school near London and served with the British Red Cross Civilian Defense during World War II. Williams worked as a portrait sculptor, art director, and magazine artist before doing his first book Stuart Little, thus beginning a long and lustrous career illustrating some of the best known children's books.

In addition to illustrating works by White and Wilder, he also illustrated George Selden's The Cricket in Times Square and its sequels (Farrar Straus Giroux). He created the character and pictures for the first book in the Frances series by Russell Hoban (HarperCollins) and the first books in the Miss Bianca series by Margery Sharp (Little, Brown). He collaborated with Margaret Wise Brown on her Little Golden Books titles Home for a Bunny and Little Fur Family, among others, and with Jack Prelutsky on two poetry collections published by Greenwillow: Ride a Purple Pelican and Beneath a Blue Umbrella. He also wrote and illustrated seven books on his own, including Baby Farm Animals (Little Golden Books) and The Rabbits' Wedding (HarperCollins).

Barbara Walker discovered the Little House series when her daughter, Anna, was four and fond of serial stories and kitchen craft. What began as pleasant diversion--re-creating frontier food--became serious study for the author after a family trip west by way of some Little House sites. Eight years of intermittent reading, writing, and testing produced The Little House Cookbook.

Anna is now married and has her own little house. Barbara Walker still writes on a variety of subjects from the home she shares with her husband outside Ossining, New York. She regrets the disappearance of lard piecrust, hard cheese, and sausage from her diet but finds solace in making bread from her original sourdough starter.