GYO FUJIKAWA

Our Best Friends by Gyo Fujikawa 1977

Gyo Fujikawa was an American-born Japanese book author and illustrator who is known for depicting characters of many different racial backgrounds.  She is one of my favorite illustrators!  She lived from 1908 to 1998, grew up in California and worked in advertising and for Walt Disney Studios.  A very interesting fact about her business savvy is that she was one of the first illustrators to ask for royalties.  She traveled a lot during the war and due to this (she was in New York), she escaped being put into an internment camp, the rest of her family was not so lucky. 

I have many books by her available on my Etsy site: Our Best Friends, Mother Goose, Let's Eat, Oh, What A Busy Day!, and Come Follow Me to the Secret World of Elves and Fairies and Gnomes and Trolls.  (These titles link to their sale listings on my Etsy site.) 

Portraits of her seem very hard to find, but I did find this sketch on LibraryThing:

References >> NY Times, Amazon, Wikipedia, CartoonBrew, LibraryThing