I have worn all kinds of hats. Big ones, little ones, motorcycle helmets, chef hats, train conductor hats, baseball caps, red hats, blue hats, fireman helmets, surgeons caps, green and yellow striped hats, a Davy Crockett hat with a long bushy stripped tail going down my back. Maybe even a pot or pan if I’m in the mood. I have worn hats with feathers and strange contraptions and hats I find in the attic. Sometimes I wear more than one hat at a time and people will stare at me like I have two heads. Every day I get to wear the hats of the characters I create because I am a children’s book illustrator.

Hello my name is David Catrow.

As a young child I always loved to draw. My first masterpiece, or so my mother’s story goes, was a drawing of a train. At the age of four my medium was a red marker from my art box sketched on my bedding sheets. Instead of napping, I was imagining the train traveling across the landscape of rolling hills and deep valleys of my white blanket. My mother wasn’t incredibly thrilled, but she couldn’t have hung it on the ‘fridge anyway.

Once my family moved from Virginia to Michigan, it was time to enter kindergarten. It wasn’t long before I was introduced to a whole new concept …the Editor. One day, maybe it was a Tuesday, our teacher instructed the class to draw a bird, a fairly simple task and one I was excited to take on. After displaying an example of how this bird should look the students got to work. One big circle for the body, one small circle for the head, a triangular beak, two sticky legs and a squiggly line to represent the wings. I started on my elaborate bird creation, wings outspread, flowing feathers and crest, open beak, and sleek body. As the teacher roamed the room, I could hear her big teacher shoes clopping on the old wooden floors, “Nice job, Joey” and “Wonderful, Claire”, she commented. And then she came to me. “This is not the bird I showed you. Please begin again David,” she said handing me a clean piece of Manila paper. “All the drawings are to be the same!” I refused, I had to draw it my own way and I felt that if I didn’t, I’d lose something of myself; my soul possibly, and I’d never get it back. The ‘editor’ made me put my head down on the table and she sent me home with a note pinned to my shirt.

My fate was sealed that day and I never looked back. I am an artist. For better or worse, I am convinced that had I obliged my teacher’s request there is no way I would have ended up where I am today. My artistic passion survived and flourished against all odds and I understand that all too often many kids aren’t so lucky.

As I grew, I always had a pencil and paper with me and while I tried many different paths I was always lead back to my art. I began my career. After lots of hard work and persistence I became an editorial cartoonist, syndicated in over 1,000 newspapers. I also began illustrating my books.

Since leaving cartooning in 2008, I now spend my life doing what I truly love; illustrating stories that I hope can be enjoyed by all ages. In addition to my many books, I recently spent over a year creating the visual development for the 20th Century Fox animated feature HORTON HEARS A WHO.

I am currently writing and illustrating a new easy-reader series called MAX SPANIEL.
I live in Ohio with my amazing wife Deborah, who accepts me and my many hats, and our dogs, the Fuzzy Brothers, Beetle and Blu.