For nearly half a century Roger Duvoisin has entertained children all over the world with his amusing stories and endearing animal personalities such as Petunia the silly goose, Veronica the friendly hippopotamus, Jasmine the independent cow, and Crocus the not-so-sure-of-himself crocodile. The Happy Lion, one of his more popular characters, resulted from a collaboration with his wife, Louise Fatio. Duvoisin illustrated the entire Happy Lion series, which contains ten titles beginning with The Happy Lion, published in 1954, and ending with The Happy Lioness, published in September 1980, soon after Duvoisin's death. Duvoisin also illustrated his wife's Red-Bantam series.

Between 1936 and 1980 Duvoisin wrote and illustrated more than forty children's books and illustrated over one hundred classics, textbooks, and children's books by scores of authors, receiving numerous honors and awards for his work. In 1948 his illustrations for Alvin R. Tresselt's White Snow, Bright Snow (1947), won the Caldecott Medal, and in 1966 another...