Lois Ehlert

Lois Jane Ehlert (November 9, 1934 – May 25, 2021) was an American author and illustrator of children's books, most having to do with nature. Ehlert won the Caldecott Honor for Color Zoo in 1990. Her mother was a seamstress who taught her how to sew at eight years old. Her mother also shared fabric scraps with her, which gave her an exposure to art early on. Her father was a trucker and blue-collar worker who also worked as a gas-station attendant, dairy worker and a maintenance man.

She graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a degree in English and psychology. She then went to the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on a scholarship for a certificate in advertising design.

Career Ehlert started her career as a freelance illustrator and a graphic designer. Amongst her first credited books as an illustrator was I Like Orange (1961) by Patricia Martin Zens, the author of The Gingerbread Man. Her first book as an author and illustrator was Growing Vegetable Soup (1987). The book was a garden-to-table guide for small children exposing the lifecycle of activities from planting seeds to steaming the vegetables in the kitchen.

Her work reflected her love of nature with gardens and nature playing a central theme in many of her works. She received an Honorable Mention from the National Outdoor Book Award (Children's Category) in 2005 for Leaf Man, which was also awarded the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award in 2006.

Personal life and death Ehlert married designer and artist John J. Reiss in 1967. The couple divorced in the 1970s.

Selected works

Growing Vegetable Soup (1987) Thump, Thump, Rat-a-Tat-Tat (illustrator) (1989) Color Farm (1990) Fish Eyes (1990) Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf (1991) Feathers for Lunch (1990) Circus (1992) Moon Rope/Un Lazo a La Luna (1992) Nuts to You! (1993) Mole's Hill: A Woodland Tale (1994) Snowballs (1995) A Pair of Socks (illustrator) (1996) Under My Nose (1996) Cuckoo/Cucú: A Mexican Folktale (1997) Angel Hide and Seek (illustrator) (1998) Top Cat (1998) Waiting for Wings (2001) Market Day/Día de marcado (2002) In My World (2002) Crocodile Smile (illustrator) (2003) Moon Rope (2003) Pie in the Sky (2004) Leaf Man (2005) In My World (2006) Oodles of Animals (2008) Boo to You! (2009) Lots of Spots (2010) Rrralph (2011) The Scraps Book (2014) Holey Moley (2015) Rain Fish (2016) Heart to Heart (2017)