) is a Dutch-born American author and illustrator who has published more than thirty children's books.

Biographical information

Spier grew up in Broek in Waterland

Broek in Waterland

Broek in Waterland is a town in the Dutch province of North Holland with about 2350 inhabitants. It is a part of the municipality of Waterland, and is situated about 8 km south of Purmerend and 8 km northeast of Amsterdam. In the 17th and 18th century, the town was a popular residence for...

 as the son of Jo Spier

Jo Spier

Jo Spier was a popular Dutch artist and illustrator. He was born Joseph Eduard Adolf Spier in Zutphen, The Netherlands...

, a very popular Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 artist and illustrator, and Tineke van Raalte. His father was Jewish, and, during the Second World War, Peter was one of nine prisoners of Villa Bouchina

Villa Bouchina

Villa Bouchina was a house of internment in the Dutch city of Doetinchem where the Germans held nine Jewish people during World War II, with the intention to protect these 'prisoners'...

 and was later in Theresienstadt

Theresienstadt concentration camp

Theresienstadt concentration camp was a Nazi German ghetto during World War II. It was established by the Gestapo in the fortress and garrison city of Terezín , located in what is now the Czech Republic.-History:The fortress of Terezín was constructed between the years 1780 and 1790 by the orders...

. After the war he studied at the Rijksakademie

Rijksakademie

The Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten is a two-year residency for visual artists, based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.Funded by the Dutch government, residents are granted a stipend and are allotted a personal studio in the former military barracks building in which the Rijksakademie is housed...

 in Amsterdam and joined the Royal Netherlands Navy

Royal Netherlands Navy

The Koninklijke Marine is the navy of the Netherlands. In the mid-17th century the Dutch Navy was the most powerful navy in the world and it played an active role in the wars of the Dutch Republic and later those of the Batavian Republic and the Kingdom of the Netherlands...

 for four years. The entire Spier family emigrated to the United States in 1950. Peter started his career at advertisement agencies and only later focused on writing and illustrating children's books.

Medium and artistic style

Like other children's illustrators such as Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter

Helen Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life.Born into a privileged Unitarian...

, Peter Spier demonstrates his talent and skills as an artist/illustrator using pen

Pen

A pen is a device used to apply ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Historically, reed pens, quill pens, and dip pens were used, with a nib of some sort to be dipped in the ink. Ruling pens allow precise adjustment of line width, and still find a few specialized uses, but...

, ink

Ink

Ink is a liquid or paste that contains pigments and/or dyes and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing and/or writing with a pen, brush, or quill...

 and watercolour on paper

Paper

Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

. Many of Spier's illustrations are extremely detailed and historically accurate. Close examination will often yield a humorous scene not readily apparent at first glance the finding of which often delights readers of all ages.

Notices

Spier reserved all rights and retained the copyrights to his works. In correspondence he noted that many of the original publishing plates used to reproduce his work were not available though the original works were thought to survive.

Publishers

The Doubleday & Company, Inc., of Garden City, New York

Garden City, New York

Garden City is a village in the town of Hempstead in central Nassau County, New York, in the United States. It was founded by multi-millionaire Alexander Turney Stewart in 1869, and is located on Long Island, to the east of New York City, from mid-town Manhattan, and just south of the town of...

 originally published many of Spier's works including The Mother Goose Library Series: "London Bridge Is Falling Down!". More recent publications can be found under the labels Double Day Books For Young Readers, Dragonfly Books and Random House

Random House

Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...

.

Recognition

He was awarded the 1978 Caldecott Medal

Caldecott Medal

The Caldecott Medal is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children , a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published that year. The award was named in honor of nineteenth-century English...

. He received the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award

Lewis Carroll Shelf Award

The Lewis Carroll Shelf Award was started in 1958 by Dr. David C. Davis with the assistance of Prof. Lola Pierstorff, Director Instructional Materials Center, Univ. of Wisconsin and Madeline Allen Davis, WHA Wisconsin Public Radio. Awards were presented annually at the Wisconsin Book Conference...

 (1977) for his book, Noah's Ark. He was also awarded a Christoper Award for his book People in 1981, which was nominated for a National Book Award in 1982.

Works

• Cow Who Fell in the Canal, Illustrator (1957)
• The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night (1961)
• Island City: Adventures In Old New York (1961)
• The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night (1961)
• The Sailing Ship (1964) (with author Jan de Hartog
  Jan de Hartog
  Jan de Hartog was a Dutch playwright, novelist and occasional social critic who moved to the United States in the early 1960s and became a Quaker.- Early years :...
  
  )
• London Bridge Is Falling Down (1967)
• Hurrah, We're Outward Bound! (1968)
• Of Dikes and Windmills (1969)
• Erie Canal (1970)
• Gobble, Growl, Grunt (1971)
• Fast-Slow High-Low (1972)
• Crash! Bang! Boom! (1972)
• Star-Spangled Banner (1973)
• Cyrus the Unsinkable Sea Serpent (1975)
• Tin Lizzie (1975)
• Noah's Ark
  Noah's Ark (book)
  Noah's Ark is a book by Peter Spier. Released by Doubleday, it was the recipient of the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1978and a National Book Award for picture books....
  
  (1977)
• Bored—nothing to do! (1978)
• Oh, Were They Ever Happy! (1978)
• Cowardly Clyde (1979)
• The Legend of New Amsterdam (1979)
• Bill's Service Station (1981)
• Firehouse (1981)
• Food Market (1981)
• My School (1981)
• The Pet Store (1981)
• The Toy Shop (1981)
• Rain (1982)
• No Such Things (1983)
• Christmas! (1983)
• The Book Of Jonah (1985)
• We The People: The Constitution Of The United States Of America (1987)
• People (1980)
• Big Trucks, Little Trucks (1988)
• Fast Cars, Slow Cars (1988)
• Here Come The Fire Trucks (1988)
• Trucks That Dig And Dump (1988)
• Star Spangled Banner (1992)
• Noah's Ark (1992)
• Circus (1995)

External links

• Peter Spier's works in the de Grummond Collection the University of Southern Mississippi
• Review of "The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night," a 1961 Caldecott honoree book by Peter Spier.