list_text=          Artist Bill Peet had a knack for developing stories, which significantly influenced such Disney animated classics as "Dumbo," "101 Dalmatians" and "The Sword in the Stone." His powers of observations, according to fellow Disney Legends Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in their book Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life, "enabled him to catch the essence of everything he drew, whether it be a boxcar on a freight train or a Bavarian dwarf living under a lily pad."
          Disney sketch and storyman Ralph Wright also recalled Bill, as was one of the few artists "who dreamed up real characters that lived and breathed and thought and came from the heart of the story artist."
          Born January 29, 1915, in Grandview, Indiana, Bill grew up in Indianapolis. As a child, he ignored his family's poverty, by sketching upbeat drawings and writing fanciful stories. At the time, he didn't dream he could grow up and make a living doing what he loved - drawing and writing - because "it was too much fun," he said.
          During high school, however, he won a scholarship to Herron Art Institute, now a part of Indiana University, and his life changed. "My life really began there," he said. "I could see the light."
          After briefly working for an Ohio greeting card company, he moved West. In 1937, he was hired as an apprentice animator at The Walt Disney Studios, where he worked on the first feature-length animated film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." 
          A year later, Bill moved into the Story Department, where he contributed to such Disney films as "Pinocchio," "Fantasia," "The Three Caballeros," "Cinderella," "Peter Pan," "Alice in Wonderland," "Sleeping Beauty," "Song of the South" and "The Jungle Book."
          During the 1950s, Bill also worked on shorts, such as "Susie, The Little Blue Coupe" and "Lambert, the Sheepish Lion," and television programs, including the "Disneyland" series. He eventually became the sole developer of the animated  "101 Dalmatians" and "The Sword in the Stone," for which he drew the characters, wrote the screenplays and directed the actors' voice performances.
          In 1959, Bill published his first children's book called "Hubert's Hare-Raising Adventure." Then in 1964, after nearly 30 years with The Walt Disney Company, he retired to pursue a full-time career as a children's book writer. Since then, Bill has written and illustrated more than 35 children's tales, translated into a multitudeof languages.
          His best-selling work is his 1989 book, Bill Peet: An Autobiography, which won him the Southern California Children's Book Writer's medal and was named one of four Caldecott Honor Books.&