Hardie Gramatky is the author of the Little Toot stories for children, great favorites since the first one was published in 1939. Gramatky's highly successful character is a personified tugboat who turns from a mischievous child into the useful and sensible savior of a grounded ocean liner and becomes a model of success. Although other characters Gramatky created in his children's books, such as Sparky the trolley car, Loopy the airplane, and Hercules the fire engine, have also been quite popular with children, none has captured their attention and held it so long as Little Toot.

Born to Bernhard August and Blanche Gunner Gramatky in Dallas. Texas, in 1907. Gramatky spent two years at Stanford University and two at Chouinard Art School; in his early twenties, after ghosting a comic strip, he joined Walt Disney Productions in Hollywood, California, as head animator. There he stayed from 1930 to 1936, moving on then...