Dorothy Pulis Lathrop is probably best known today as the winner of the first Caldecott Medal (1938) for her illustrations in Helen Dean Fish's 1937 book Animals of the Bible, but she followed that honor with two and a half more decades of writing and distinguished artwork. Lathrop illustrated forty-seven books, seventeen of which she herself had written. First admired for her pen-and-ink drawings for books by Walter de la Mare, William Henry Hudson, and Rachel Field among others, Lathrop made her debut as a writer with the publication of The Fairy Circus (1931). It was not, however, until four years later, with the publication of Who Goes There" (1935) that she clearly showed the interest in animals that dominated her career as an author and illustrator of children's books.

Both Lathrop's love of animals and her artistic talents were fostered by her family. She was born on 16 April 1891 in Albany, New...