Cyndy Szekeres

Cyndy Szekeres (zeck-er-es) has produced over 130 books for children including the popular Toby series. She won the AIGA award for her book Moon Mouse.  A child of  the depression, she drew on paper bags, flattened and trimmed by her father, a toolmaker.  Her father encouraged her to attend Pratt in order to pursue advertising but she had her heart set on becoming an illustrator.  Working for a New York City designer let her to doing illustration for department store’s children’s fashion sections.  The publishing house, Doubleday noticed her work and in 1959 asked her to illustrate Sam Vaughan’s children’s book, New Shoes and she never looked back.  Her papers are housed at the University of Connecticut.  Ms. Szekeres lived most of her life on a farm in Vermont full of the creatures she populated her books with.