I was accepted into the department of medical illustration at the Johns Hopkins University College of Medicine, one of only two students who were accepted that year. But since the other student was drafted (this was during the Vietnam war), I was literally in a "class by myself." I spent two years at Hopkins, looking through microscopes and dissecting the cadaver along with the medical students, as well as sketching in the operating room and dissecting monkey hands for my master's thesis. I received my Master's Degree in 1970. After four years of hard work, I was finally qualified to pursue a profession which I would soon heartlessly abandon, because just a few years later, in my mid-thirties, I suddenly discovered what I wanted to be when I grew up: a children's book illustrator.

I made the discovery thanks to my two lovely daughters, Catherine and Tamara. Since I had always loved books and reading, I wanted to share books with my children. I went to the library every week and spent hours digging through the stacks. I found plenty of good books there, and I found a vocation, too. Though I was already combining full-time mothering with free-lance medical illustration, in what snatches of time I could muster I began building a portfolio of children's book illustrations. This took about a year. When I was ready, I made an appointment with John Keller, an editor at Little, Brown and Company. He gave me my first book contract, and The Farmer in the Dell was published in 1978.

For a few years, I worked only as an illustrator. Then I came up with an idea for a story about a bunch of talkative mice, and in 1983 The Conversation Club was published. Since then, I have gone on to do more and more writing, including a number of books that were illustrated by other artists (such as Moe the Dog in Tropical Paradise with pictures by Elise Primavera and Saving Sweetness and Raising Sweetness with pictures by G. Brian Karas). I especially enjoy writing novels. I have published four so far (A Time Apart, The Mysterious Matter of I. M. Fine, The Mysterious Case of the Allbright Academy, and Bella at Midnight). I am currently at work on my fifth.

With my biography of Peter the Great, I became a nonfiction author. Counting The Last Princess: the Story of Kaiulani of Hawaii, which was written by my mother and illustrated by me, there are now eleven books in my series of biographies. The twelfth, Mozart: The Wonder Child; A Puppet Play in Three Acts, will be published on January 27, Mozart's birthday. Starting with my second biography, Shaka, King of the Zulus, my husband Peter started helping me with the research. He would often be the one who did the preliminary library work, choosing which were the most important books on the subject, after which both of us would read the many sources he came up with. Though I was the one who did the actual writing and illustrating, Peter's input was extremely helpful. Since he had read all the same books, he could act as a first, very informed, editor of what I had written, before my actual editor even saw the manuscript. On a number of my biographies, because of his tremendous help, he is listed as co-author.


In 1981 my third child, John, was born. I now had kids of both sexes and in three flavors--a redhead, a brunette, and a blonde. Today, Catherine ("Cat") is an assistant professor of art history at The University of New Mexico. Tamara, who majored in creative writing in college, went on to become a lawyer. She now works as an assistant public defender in California. And John is living in New York and working in film production. John is also responsible for this web page, so any mistaks you may find in it are all his fualt.