avid Small was born and raised in Detroit. In school he became known as “the kid who could draw good” but David never considered a career in art because it was so easy for him. At 21, after many years of writing plays, David took the advice of a friend who informed him that the doodles he made on the telephone pad were better than anything he had ever written. He switched his major to Art and never looked back. After getting his MFA at the Yale Graduate School of Art, David taught art for many years on the college level, ran a film series and made satirical sketches for campus newspapers. Approaching tenure, he wrote and illustrated a picture book, Eulalie and the Hopping Head, which he took to New York, pounding the pavement and collecting rejections for a month in the dead of winter. Eulalie was published in 1981.

Although tenure at the college did not follow, many more picture books did, as well as extensive work for national magazines and newspapers. His drawings appeared regularly in The New Yorker and The New York Times. David is a learn-as-you-go illustrator. His books have been translated into several languages, have been made into animated films and musicals, and have won many of the top awards accorded to illustration, including the 1997 Caldecott Honor and The Christopher Medal for The Gardener written by his wife, Sarah Stewart, and the 2001 Caldecott Medal for So, You Want To Be President? by Judith St. George. “At the Caldecott ceremony in San Francisco,” said David, “facing that veritable sea of smiling faces, of librarians, of friends in publishing, of my family and other well-wishers, I was so overcome that I lost my voice and croaked my way through the speech. Having been turned from a frog into a prince by the American Library Association, before their eyes that night, I turned back into a frog!” To date he has illustrated over 40 picture books. At an average of 40 pages per book, that makes around 1,840 illustrations, though someone ought to check that math.

Most recently, David has created the jacket and interior illustrations for Kathi Appelt's debut novel, The Underneath, which will be released in May 2008 from Atheneum / Simon & Schuster. As part of their program based on popular children's books, TheatreWorks USA is now showing a mini-musical adaptation of one of David's classic titles, Ruby Mae Has Something To Say. Currently, David has focused his time on Stitches, a graphic memoir about his problematic youth, which will be published by W.W. Norton in Fall 2009.

David Small and Sarah Stewart make their home in an 1833 manor house on a bend of the St. Joseph River in southwest Michigan. David’s studio is an 1890 farmhouse also overlooking the river, just a short walk from home.