Steven Kellogg

About Steven Kellogg

Steven Kellogg (born 1941) is an American author and illustrator from Norwalk, Connecticut, known for detailed picture books such as the Pinkerton dog stories, his American tall-tale retellings and his pictures for The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash (1980).

Kellogg studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, including a scholarship year in Italy. His first children's book was George Mendoza's Gwot! (1967), and after his marriage to Helen Hill that year he began illustrating for other authors before writing his own stories. His early work used detailed pen and ink, later developing into pen with watercolour. He has created more than 90 books.

His own titles include Can I Keep Him? (1971), The Island of the Skog (1973), The Mysterious Tadpole (1977) and Pinkerton, Behave! (1979), followed by further Pinkerton books in 1981, 1982 and 1986. He retold tall tales in Paul Bunyan (1984), Pecos Bill (1986), Johnny Appleseed (1988) and Mike Fink (1992). As an illustrator he worked with Margaret Mahy (The Boy Who Was Followed Home, 1975), the counting books How Much Is a Million? (1985) and If You Made a Million (1989), Deborah Guarino (Is Your Mama a Llama?, 1989), Reeve Lindbergh and James Thurber. He received the Regina Medal for his lifetime contribution to children's literature, and several of his books were Reading Rainbow selections.

For collectors

First editions of Can I Keep Him? (1971), the Pinkerton books and the Jimmy's Boa books carry his best-known art. Kellogg donated all of his original illustrations, more than 2,700 works, to the Mazza Museum at the University of Findlay, Ohio, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2011.