Windmill Books and Robert Kraus Papers

Author, illustrator, and publisher Herman Robert Kraus was born June 21, 1925, in Milwaukee WI. He sold his first drawing at the age of 11, when he had the idea to make a drawing based on the tune 'shave and a hair cut, two bits' and took it door-to-door to barber shops until he sold it. Kraus began selling to national magazines such as Esquire, and The Saturday Evening Post as a teenager of 16 and 17 years old. As he mailed in his work, the editors had no idea he was so young. He graduated high school as an honor student at 16, but rather than go to college and on to law school as his mother hoped, he hitch hiked across the country then went to art school first in Milwaukee then in New York City (the Arts Students League).

Kraus had wanted to become a fine artist, but saw cartooning as a way to support himself and his new wife in New York City. One day while he and his wife, Pamela, who also was an artist, were in waiting for an assembly to begin at the League a discussion arose about how impossible it was to get published in The New Yorker. Kraus said to the group that he could get in in two years. Afterward his wife asked him how he could say something like that so publicly. His response? Well, he could. As it turned out it took him only about 7 months, after which he became a regular contributor.

After 15 years of this he decided to try something new: writing and illustrating children's books full time. In 1965 he established Windmill Books, which specialized in children's picture books and functioned in partnerships with large publishing houses. Some of Kraus's most well known works include "The Trouble with Spider", "Whose Mouse are You?", and "Leo the Late Bloomer". Kraus died August 7, 2001.

(Biographical Sources: Pamela Kraus, Bill Kraus, "Something About the Author", vols. 4, 65, 93, 130, and "Something About the Author Autobiography Series", vol. 11.)