Simms Taback

As a child

Simms Taback grew up in the Bronx, in a neighbourhood of mainly Eastern European Jews, who built their own co-operative housing project. "It was like a Utopia for me, with a community centre, science and sports clubs, a library and art classes. My mother was especially supportive of my artistic talent and I attended the High School of Music and Art, and graduated from Cooper Union."

As an adult

Since then, he has had a varied career in the applied arts, working as a graphic designer, advertising agency art director, and partner in a design/illustration office. As a freelance illustrator, he has worked for national advertising clients, contributed to numerous magazines and has designed and published his own line of greetings cards. He has taught illustration and design at the School of Visual Arts, and at Syracuse University, and has served as the president of both the Illustrators' Guild and the Graphic Artists' Guild. He presently lives and works with his wife, Gail, in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. He has three children and five grandchildren, who are impressed that he designed and illustrated the very first McDonalds Happy Meal box.

As an artist

He has illustrated about thirty-five books for children, twice being selected for a New York Times Best Illustrated Book award. His adaptation of There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly received the Parents' Choice Gold Award, the Parenting Magic Reading Award and was chosen for a Caldecott Honor in 1998. In 2000 he was awarded the distinguished Caldecott Medal for Joseph Had a Little Overcoat.