Lee, Hector Viveros 1962–

PERSONAL: Born December 30, 1962, in Calexico, CA; son of Hector Garcia and Teresa Lee. Ethnicity: "Latino/Mexican-American." Education: St. John's College, Camarillo, CA, B.A., 1985; Academy of Art College, San Francisco, CA, B.F.A., 1993.

ADDRESSES: Home—San Francisco, CA. Agent—Barbara Kouts, P.O. Box 560, Bellport, NY 11713. E-mail—hlee@muse.sfusd.edu.

CAREER: Worked as a teacher in Parlier, CA, San Francisco, CA, and New York, NY; illustrator, San Francisco, 1992–. San Francisco Public Library, library laureate, 2003. Exhibitions: Work exhibited at Sheraton Palace Hotel, San Francisco, 1993; Thatcher Gallery, University of San Francisco, 1999; and Museum of Children's Art, Oakland, CA, 2000, 2001.

MEMBER: Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

WRITINGS:

(And illustrator) I Had a Hippopotamus (juvenile), Lee & Low Books (New York, NY), 1996.

I Had a Hippopotamus has also been published in Spanish.

ILLUSTRATOR:

Por algo son los amigos, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1996.

America, My Land, Your Land, Our Land, Lee & Low Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Jeannine Atkins, Get Set! Swim!, Lee & Low Books (New York, NY), 1998.

Flores para Abuela, Scott-Foresman (Glenview, IL), 1999.

W. Nikola-Lisa, Can You Top That?, Lee & Low Books (New York, NY), 2000.

D.H. Figueroa, Big Snowball Fight, Bebop Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Madeleine Del Brel, The Little Monk, Crossroad Publishing (New York, NY), 2005.

Lee's illustrations have appeared in magazines, including Cricket, Spider, and Ladybug, and on book covers.

SIDELIGHTS: Hector Viveros Lee once told CA: "I was born to Mexican parents in Calexico, California, and was raised in Parlier, near Fresno, in the San Joaquin Valley. This small town in the fertile agricultural region provided my early experiences. Being immigrants, my parents were initially employed as farm workers, which gave me a taste of the toil and honor of such labor and how life was tied to the land and its seasons. Having grandparents, uncles, and cousins living in the same town, I had the luxury of growing up in an extended family that prized its values and cultural heritage.

"My higher education began as an art major at Fresno State, but a year later I entered St. John's Seminary College in southern California, where I earned a liberal arts degree. I had the benefit of a well-rounded education. I returned to Fresno, where I secured a teaching credential and began teaching in Parlier in the very school I attended as a child. While working there, I became familiar with the development of children and rediscovered children's literature. Good children's books spoke to human issues beyond any age bracket; I was amazed how a child and an adult could enjoy a children's book on different levels. I began to create books to assist my students to read, one which served as the beginnings of my first book. I moved to San Francisco in 1990, where I enrolled in the Academy of Art College, earning a second degree in illustration.

"I continue to teach and since 1992 have worked as a freelance artist. I enjoy depicting a variety of subjects that appeal to children and adults. I especially enjoy drawing animals, which have been a constant source of wonder and admiration since I was young. On occasion I draw on my particular Latino experience to create pictures with universal appeal. Imaginary and fantastical elements are part of my work. I believe they are an integral part of living; they provide links to our interior reality. I draw with the conviction that art taps into our paradoxical and wonderful humanity—both in the simple and the complex, ordinary and the magical, the particular and the universal."

Lee has written and illustrated one picture book and illustrated several children's books written by others. In his illustration, Lee uses India ink, gouache, and watercolor in layers, creating an effect that has been likened to that of woodcuts. The author relied on this method for the illustrations in his picture book, I Had a Hippopotamus, in which a little boy bestows on others the cookies from his box of animal crackers, and one by one the animals come alive. The kangaroo he gives his grandmother helps her in the kitchen by stowing her utensils in its pocket; the coyote he gives to his uncle howls along with his uncle's guitar playing. Critics admired the author's deadpan delivery of the humorous text, combined with illustrations done in what a reviewer for Publishers Weekly dubbed "a wildly vivid palette." A contributor to Kirkus Reviews noted that Lee's illustrations "require—and reward—careful scrutiny." I Had a Hippopotamus is "a winning spin on the notion that 'tis better to give than to receive … an anaconda," the reviewer for Publishers Weekly concluded.

Lee has also contributed the illustrations to several children's books written by others. Among these is Jeannine Atkins's Get Set! Swim!, in which a young girl named Jessenia nervously prepares to participate in a swim meet in the suburbs against a winning team with a large, new pool. For her mother, the meet conjures up memories of swimming in the ocean in Puerto Rico. Though Jessenia wins her match, her team loses the meet, inspiring a mixture of feelings which Lee conveys in artwork that "is strong in both design and color," according to Ilene Cooper in Booklist. Get Set! Swim! was particularly recommended for libraries in search of materials that focus on Hispanic families.