Bill Peet, a picture book author and illustrator who was also a renowned screenwriter and animator for Walt Disney Studios, died May 11 at his home in California's San Fernando Valley. He was 87. Peet had been suffering from pneumonia and had battled heart problems and cancer for several years.

Born in Grandview, IN, Peet began his career as a greeting card artist. He then went to work as an animator and writer for Disney in 1937, joining a team that created many of the studio's classics, including Fantasia (1940) and Sleeping Beauty (1959).

In the late 1950s, he started writing and illustrating children's books. His best-known picture books include The Pinkish, Purplish, Bluish Egg (Houghton, 1963) and Chester the Worldly Pig (Houghton, 1965). His own illustrated story, Bill Peet: An Autobiography (Houghton, 1989), was selected as a Caldecott Honor Book.