The Luckiest One of All

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982. Later printing. Trade paperback. Good. Bill Peet. Format is approx. 8.5 inches by 9.75 inches. [2], 30 pages. Illustrated front cover. Illustrations (color). Cover has minor wear and corner bumping. Wishing to be a bird, a little boy learns that there are benefits and drawbacks to every condition and that being a little boy may be the best of all. William Bartlett Peet (n�e Peed; January 29, 1915 - May 11, 2002) was an American children's book illustrator and a story writer and animator for Walt Disney Animation Studios. Peet joined Disney in 1937 and worked first on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs near the end of its production. Progressively, his involvement in the Disney studio's animated feature films and shorts increased, and he remained there until early in the development of The Jungle Book. A row with Walt Disney over the direction of the project led to a permanent break. Peet's subsequent career was as a writer and illustrator of numerous children's books, including Capyboppy, The Wump World, The Whingdingdilly, The luckiest One of All, and Cyrus the Unsinkable Serpent. While he was still working at Disney, Peet turned his attention to writing and illustrating children's books. Peet developed many of his ideas from bedtime stories he had told his children and he wrote and illustrated several books while still at Disney. After leaving the studio in 1964, Peet turned his full attention into writing children's books. 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.