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Ted Rand was born on December 27, 1915 on Mercer Island, Washington. His mother was a teacher and his father was the principal of the Luther Burbank School, which was run by the Seattle school district for “wayward boys.”
When he was young, he traveled the world. “I saw Hitler speak in Munich,” he once said, “and I saw Mussolini speak in Rome. You had to feel something was coming (but) I was too dumb to be scared.” He eventually enlisted in the Naval Air Corps, where he served as a navigator in the Pacific Theatre.
He lived for many years in Mercer Island, Washington, with his wife, Gloria Rand, with whom he often collaborated on books. The couple had two children, a boy and a girl. Mr. Rand taught in the Art Department at the University of Washington for 22 years. He worked as a graphic artist for a department store and an advertising firm. It is, however, the 78 children’s books he illustrated that will keep him close in our hearts and minds. As you can see from the book covers sampled here, his style was always fresh and his skills at illustration strengthened every book on which he worked.
In 2005, Mr. Rand received the Kerlan Award from the University of Minnesota for his body of work. He received the Christopher Medal for his illustrations for Longfellow’s Paul Revere. Among the last of the books he illustrated is Jack Prelutsky’s If Not For the Cat.