Authors & Illustrators
Fritz Siebel
The unforgettable Amelia Bedelia was introduced to the world in 1963, brought to life by the words of Peggy Parish and the drawings of Fritz Siebel. Mr. Siebel had already illustrated several children’s books; he was also a graphic designer and the founder of a graphic and package design company in New York City, specializing in advertising campaigns. After illustrating the next two Amelia Bedelia books (Thank You, Amelia Bedelia in 1964 and Amelia Bedelia and the Surprise Shower in 1966), Mr. Siebel went back to advertising full-time, and artist Wallace Tripp took over.
Wallace Trip
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Wallace Tripp grew up in rural New Hampshire and New York. He has illustrated more than fifty children’s books. Mr. Tripp’s Amelia Bedelia is more realistic and less comical than Mr. Siebel’s. Using a process of transferring tracing-paper sketches to cold-press illustration board, inking the images, and finally filling them in with watercolor, Mr. Tripp painstakingly rendered the scenes of Come Back, Amelia Bedelia (1972) and Play Ball, Amelia Bedelia (1974). Mr. Tripp and his wife began their own company (Pawprints Greeting Cards), and today they live in California.
Lynn Sweat
Texas-born artist Lynn Sweat was doing magazine illustration and design work in New York City when he entered the children’s book world, illustrating Birds without Words in 1961. That book won an award from the Society of Illustrators and caught the eye of Peggy Parish’s publisher, Susan Hirschman. She met with Mr. Sweat and asked him if he’d be interested in doing more children’s book art. After publishing a few books together, Ms. Hirschman thought Mr. Sweat was just the man for the job when Amelia Bedelia needed a new illustrator. His first Amelia Bedelia book was Good Work, Amelia Bedelia—in which, he says, he brought the character back to a more “cartoonish and wacky” look—and he illustrated all of Ms. Parish’s Amelia Bedelia titles until her death in 1988. He describes Ms. Parish as very quirky and funny.
Barbara Siebel Thomas
From 1993 to 1996, Barbara Siebel Thomas, Fritz Siebel’s daughter, helped to create newly illustrated editions of Thank You, Amelia Bedelia and Amelia Bedelia and the Surprise Shower, as well as the Spanish edition of Amelia Bedelia, all based on her father’s original drawings. She was trained at the Art Students’ League in New York City and worked as an art director before turning full-time to painting and illustrating. Ms. Thomas has painted commissioned portraits of homes for more than twenty years, but her favorite subject is landscapes. She lives in Bridgehampton, New York.
Lynn Avril
In 2009, Greenwillow Books published Herman Parish’s first Amelia Bedelia picture book, Amelia Bedelia’s First Day of School, which introduced readers to Amelia Bedelia as a child. Lynne Avril, the illustrator of more than fifty books for children, was chosen to transform the familiar, beloved grown-up Amelia Bedelia into a young girl. “I’ve loved Amelia Bedelia for a very long time,” she says, “and I read the Amelia Bedelia books to my own children. What fun it was to accompany my granddaughter to her first day of school and draw on that experience for the pictures in Amelia Bedelia’s First Day of School!” Lynne Avril is the illustrator of all the books about young Amelia Bedelia, and she lives in Phoenix, Arizona.