Being born in 1962 isn’t easy, but that’s exactly what Pierre Pratt did, on a February 8th. Little by little, he began to grow. Like any growing artist, he drew the objects around him, the people he met, in the quiet atmosphere of his little room, his face a mask of perfect concentration. He still retains that expression. He studied graphic design at Ahuntsic College in Montreal. At the beginning of the 1980s, he began drawing small comic strips. Then he turned to illustration. He did his apprenticeship with several different magazines in Quebec. Since 1990, he has been illustrating (and also writing) books for children, some 50 by now. He has won several prizes, including the Governor-General’s Award of Canada three times, a Golden Apple and a Golden Platein Bratislava, a Totem at the Montreuil Salon du Livre in France, a UNICEF Prize in Bologna, the Boston Globe Horn Book Award, the Elizabeth Cleaver Prize, the Mr. Christie Book Award, and the TD Children’s Literature Award. In 2008 he represented Canada for the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award.