William Pene du Bois was born on May 9, 1916, in Nutley, New Jersey. He attended Miss Marstow's School in New York and in 1924 moved to France, where he studied at Lycee Hoche in Versailles until 1928 and at Lycee de Nice the following year. In 1930 he returned to New Jersey, where he studied at the Morristown School until 1934. Du Bois served in the U.S. Army from 1941 to 1945. After his discharge from the army, he became a correspondent for Yank magazine and later became an art editor and designer for the Paris Review.

Du Bois has been a prolific author and illustrator of books for children and for young adults. His first work of fiction for children was Elizabeth, the Cow Ghost (1936), followed by Giant Otto (1937), a book about a giant otterhound who befriends the Sphinx in the course of his extraordinary adventures. The many sequels...