Secret Lives of Walter Mitty and of James Thurber

Thurber and Simont were friends and neighbors in West Cornwall, Connecticut, when Simont was a young man. After Thurber lost his own eyesight, Simont illustrated such works of Thurber's as "The Thirteen Clocks" and "The Wonderful O". Recently, Simont provided new illustrations for a new edition of "Many Moons", the first illustrations of which had earned Louis Slobodkin a Caldecott Award. Simont, a native speaker and teacher of the Catalan language, won the Caldecott Award for "A Tree is Nice", in 1957.