Robert Kraus 1925-2001
By Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 8/27/2001
Robert Kraus, author, cartoonist and publisher, died in a Connecticut nursing home on August 7. He was 76.
After attending the Art Students League in New York City, Kraus began drawing cartoons for a number of magazines, including more than 400 cartoons and 21 covers for the New Yorker. His children's book career started in 1955, when Junior, the Spoiled Cat, which he wrote and illustrated, was published, and he went on to create over 100 books for children, including Whose Mouse Are You?, Boris Bad Enough, Milton the Early Riser, Fables Aesop Never Wrote and Leo the Late Bloomer.
In 1965, Kraus founded Windmill Books, and published many well-received children's books, a number with illustrations by fellow New Yorker artists, including William Steig's Caldecott Medal winner, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. Following difficulties with Windmill's distributor in the early 1980s, Kraus signed over the company to Simon & Schuster and devoted himself to writing children's books.
