SOURCE CITATION
"Dav(id Murray, Jr.) Pilkey." Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, 2nd ed., 8 vols. Gale Group, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.

BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
An author and illustrator of picture books, fiction, and nonfiction, Dav Pilkey is a versatile and prolific creator of books for children from preschool through the middle grades. Considered one of the most popular contemporary authors for readers in elementary school, he is also regarded as a talented artist and inventive humorist as well as a subtle moralist. Pilkey favors broad parodies of art, literature, and popular culture--his books target monster movies, superhero comic books, modern art, science fiction, and classic folktales, among other genres. The author often fills his works with lowbrow humor that appeals to young readers, such as toilet jokes and plots that revolve around such subjects as the effects of dog breath and a hypnotized school principal who thinks he is a superhero and runs around in his underwear. However, Pilkey has also created sensitive, evocative mood pieces, and he underscores his works--even at their most outrageous--with a philosophy that emphasizes friendship, tolerance, and generosity and celebrates the triumph of the good-hearted. Featuring both human and animal characters--the latter both real and imaginary--Pilkey characters are both sweet, sometimes dim protagonists who are misunderstood but end up on top and genuinely silly creatures who are blithely unaffected by the stupid things they do.

Although he is highly regarded for several of his individual works, Pilkey is perhaps best known for four series: "Captain Underpants," "Dumb Bunnies," "Big Dog and Little Dog," and the "Dragon" books. Directed to middle graders, the best-selling "Captain Underpants" stories describe how two mischievous fourth-graders--creators, like the young Pilkey, of their own comic books--use a 3-D Hypno-Ring to turn their mean principal into their own creation, the bumbling but valiant crusader Captain Underpants. The "Dumb Bunnies" series--written by Pilkey as Sue Denim, a play on the word "pseudonym"--depicts a family of roly-poly, bucktoothed rabbits who do everything backward, and the "Dragon" books, simple stories directed to beginning readers, feature a childlike blue dragon whose innocent, well-meaning nature leads him into humorous situations. The "Big Dog and Little Dog" series are board books for very young children about two canine friends whose playfulness gets them into scrapes.

As a literary stylist, Pilkey favors straightforward but lively narratives filled with wordplay, especially puns, and jokes; he has also written some of his books in verse. As an artist, Pilkey creates works that range from campy cartoons in bold fluorescent colors to sumptuous, detailed paintings in muted tones. He works in a variety of mediums, including watercolor, colored pencil, acrylics, magic markers, collage, and, according to his own report, Hamburger Helper and Dijon mustard. Most of Pilkey's art is lighthearted and carries much of the humor of his books; however, some of his works are darker, more mystical and surreal.

Like his texts, Pilkey's illustrations are full of allusions. His works include takeoffs on well-known paintings by such artists as da Vinci, Van Gogh, Whistler, Grant Wood, and Edward Hopper while echoing the styles of Picasso, Rousseau, Miro, and Chagall, among others. Pilkey's illustrations are often thought to outshine his text; in addition, he has been accused of labored humor and of including allusions that are beyond the experience of his readers. However, Pilkey is also praised as a writer and artist who understands children and what appeals to them and who expresses his distinctive vision in vibrant, eclectic art. Writing in New York Times Book Review, James Howe, the author of the popular "Bunnicula" series, made this recommendation: "If it's been a while since you've heard a five-year-old chortle, you owe it to yourself to think of Dav Pilkey when gift giving time rolls around. . . . (He is) a big . . . talent. I look forward to the dreams he will awaken in me and in those children lucky enough to know him in the years to come."

Pilkey recalled his early life in commentary on his Web site About Dav: "I don't remember much about my early childhood, except that I was almost always happy. My parents tell me that I used to laugh in my sleep all the time, even as an infant. When I wasn't laughing, I kept myself busy by drawing. When the other kids in the neighborhood were outside playing baseball and football, I was inside drawing animals, monsters, and superhero guys. Life was pretty cool when I was little . . . and then school started."

Pilkey once commented, "I was never very good at following the rules. My elementary years were spent in a strict parochial school where everyone was expected to be solemn, self-controlled, and obedient. Naturally, I was the class clown. I quickly became well versed in the art of spitball shooting, paper airplane throwing, and rude noise making. In first grade I held the classroom record for the number of crayons I could stick up my nose at one time (six)." After setting the school record for the amount of time spent in the principal's office, Pilkey was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and severe hyperactivity. By second grade he had spent so much time standing in the school hallway that his teacher moved a desk there just for him. Pilkey recalled, "I was the only kid in the whole school with my own personal desk out in the hall, and I made good use of it." Keeping his desk--which stayed in the hall through the end of fifth grade--well stocked with pencils, paper, magic markers, and crayons, Pilkey spent his detention time immersed in drawing. "I spent so much time drawing out in the hall," he noted, "that I became an artist."

Pilkey also developed an interest in writing while sitting at his desk in the hall. "I'd draw pictures to relieve my boredom," he told Sally Lodge in a Publishers Weekly interview. "Then I began making comic books, since they seemed to make my stories come alive." Pilkey stapled together sheets of paper to make his own books, which he filled with the adventures of a group of superheroes; one of these creations was Captain Underpants, who would resurface later in his own series. Pilkey recalled, "These comic books were a real hit with my classmates, but not with my teachers. I remember one teacher who, after furiously ripping up one of my stories, told me I'd better start taking life more seriously, because I couldn't spend the rest of my days making silly books. Lucky for me, I wasn't a very good listener either."

Pilkey attended a strict high school where his sense of humor continued to be unappreciated by his teachers. He wrote on his Web site: "One day my principal took me out of class and said to me, 'I know you think you're special because you can draw, but let me tell you something: artists are a dime a dozen. You will never make a living as an artist!' Those words haunted me for many years. How delightful it was to prove him wrong."

In 1984 Pilkey began attending Kent State University as an art major. The professor who taught freshman English complimented Pilkey on his creative writing and encouraged him to write books. Finding some merit in this idea, Pilkey began to work on his first children's book, World War Won, which he entered in the "National Written and Illustrated By . . ." contest, a competition for students sponsored by Landmark Editions of Kansas City, Missouri. World War Won was awarded the grand prize, and at nineteen, Pilkey became a published author. He recalled on his Web site: "It was the most exciting time in my life. I'll never forget getting off the plane in Kansas City and meeting my new publisher for the first time. I tried to act normal, but I was so excited. It took every bit of self-control I had not to scream, jump up and down, and laugh hysterically. . . . I was going to be an author!"

A picture book written in verse, World War Won describes how the leaders of two animal kingdoms, fighting for power, stockpile weapons to use against each other. The result of their stockpiling is a "nuclear freeze" in which both piles of weapons are sprayed with water and then left at Icicle Springs, which is always frozen. "The moral, of course," according to School Library Journal contributor Susan Scheps, "is that peace comes only through understanding and cooperation." Scheps added that Pilkey's full-page colored pencil cartoons "are of professional caliber" and that World War Won "provides a model for other hopeful young authors."

After the publication of his first book, Pilkey began to research the genre of children's literature more thoroughly. He recalled, "When I really got serious about writing children's books, I began reading everything I could by my favorite writers, Arnold Lobel, Cynthia Rylant, James Marshall, and Harry Allard. I read Frog and Toad, Henry and Mudge, George and Martha, and The Stupids over and over again, until I started to pick up rhythms and recognize patterns. Soon I began to see what really worked in these books--what made them great pieces of literature."

Pilkey met the author of Henry and Mudge (and other notable children's books), Cynthia Rylant, in a writers' group in Kent, Ohio, in the late 1980s; they have been companions ever since. In 1990 Pilkey dreamed that he was supposed to move to Oregon, so he and Rylant relocated to Eugene three years later. He wrote on his Web site: "Moving to Oregon was a great adventure for us, because Cyndi and I had never even seen Oregon before. We kind of felt like the early pioneers who traveled the Oregon Trail for the promise of a better life. Of course, the pioneers encountered many hardships along the way, including starvation, disease, and death. The only hardship we encountered along the way was once when we got french fries at Burger King and they were kind of soggy."

In 1991 Pilkey produced the first of his "Dragon" books, A Friend for Dragon and Dragon Gets By. In A Friend for Dragon, the gentle protagonist is tricked by a snake into believing that an apple is his friend. A hungry walrus eats the apple, and Dragon is crushed. However, after he buries the core, a tree grows that bears a whole crop of new "friends" for Dragon. In Dragon Gets By, Dragon spends a day doing everything wrong--for example, he reads an egg, then fries the morning paper--before watering his bed and going to sleep on his plants. In subsequent volumes of the series, Dragon celebrates Halloween and Christmas in his own inimitable way and adopts a stray cat, learning by trial and error how to take care of her. Assessing A Friend for Dragon and Dragon Gets By for Publishers Weekly, Diane Roback and Richard Donahue stated, "With his excellent vocabulary choices and crafty characterizations--small squiggles carry large meanings--Pilkey has created a positively precious prehistoric prototype." Booklist critic Carolyn Phelan, reviewing Dragon's Fat Cat, added, "The 'Dragon' series is fast moving toward that pantheon of children's reading reserved for books that make kids laugh out loud. . . . (W)hat more could we ask for newcomers than the intrinsic reward of a genuinely funny book? Again and again, Pilkey delivers." In a review of Dragon's Halloween, a critic in Publishers Weekly concluded, "Bright blue Dragon never disappoints; Pilkey's series hero is affability incarnate."

In 1994 Pilkey launched his "Dumb Bunnies" series under the nom de plume Sue Denim. Created as an homage to Harry Allard and James Marshall, the creators of the "Stupids" books, the series depicts the adventures of a family of clueless bunnies in deadpan text and brightly colored cartoons. Pilkey parodies "The Three Bears" and "Little Red Riding Hood" in the first volume of the series, The Dumb Bunnies. Little Red Goldilocks wreaks havoc until Baby Bunny flushes her down the toilet. Subsequent volumes continue the escapades of the loopy lapines, who confuse holiday customs in The Dumb Bunnies' Easter, visit the beach during a storm in Make Way for Dumb Bunnies, and cause a riot when they let the animals out of their cages in The Dumb Bunnies Go to the Zoo. In his review of The Dumb Bunnies in Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Roger Sutton characterized the Dumb Bunnies as "the Stupids in pink fur." Mary Harris Veeder of Booklist, reviewing The Dumb Bunnies' Easter, claimed, "The Bunny family is a worthy successor to those all-time favorites the Stupids. . . . This is dumbness supreme and a real treat." The Dumb Bunnies became an animated series on CBS television in the late 1990s. Around the same time Pilkey introduced a new series, the "Silly Gooses," which is akin to the "Dumb Bunnies" in depicting anthropomorphic animals who engage in backward behavior. The books feature Mr. and Mrs. Goose and their goslings Ketchup and Mustard, named after their parents' favorite ice cream toppings.

In contrast to his humorous books, Pilkey has written and illustrated several picture books that showcase the full range of his talents as an illustrator and present young readers with more serious and meditative subjects. One book of this type, The Paperboy, was named a Caldecott Medal Honor Book for its illustrations in 1997. A young African-American boy, accompanied by his dog, rises before dawn to deliver his papers on a Saturday morning; after finishing their job, the pair go back to bed and dream about flying across the night sky. Calling The Paperboy a "totally satisfying story," School Library Journal reviewer Wendy Lukehart noted that Pilkey "paints their shared experience with a graceful economy of language." Pilkey's acrylic paintings, in the opinion of Carolyn Phelan in Booklist, "include beautifully composed landscapes and interiors." Horn Book contributor Mary M. Burns noted that the emphasis of the pictures "is on balance and geometric form, giving solidity to this celebration of routine (so dear to the heart of preschoolers). Yet this interpretation is never boring, for the palette is rich and inviting, and situations are exotic for children whose days begin in light, not darkness."

With his "Big Dog and Little Dog" series, Pilkey has created a number of books for the youngest child. In these picture books with minimal text and large illustrations printed on thick cardboard, two devoted canine companions go for walks, play in puddles, and snuggle together while demonstrating both the sweet and more fun-loving sides of their personalities. The sixth volume of the series, Big Dog and Little Dog Making a Mistake, describes what happens when the duo mistake a skunk for a kitten and then disrupt a party. Writing in School Library Journal, Maura Bresnahan predicted that babies and toddlers will find "the colorful illustrations appealing but the humor will be better appreciated by older children." The critic added that the simple sentence structure and repetitive text "makes this board book ideal for those just learning to read."

After becoming an author and illustrator, Pilkey began to visit schools to talk to children. He would explain how he found his calling while sitting in the hallway of his elementary school. Pilkey described these school visits for Publishers Weekly: "Inevitably, the name 'Captain Underpants' would come up, and though I cracked jokes throughout my presentation, the mention of this name would get by far the biggest laugh. And whenever I mentioned the title of one of my early Captain Underpants comic books, which involved talking toilets, the room would explode with laughter. That's when I knew I had to do a book about him." The Adventures of Captain Underpants: An Epic Novel was published in 1997. Two misbehaving fourth-graders at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, introverted Harold Hutchins and extroverted George Beard, write their own comic books; Pilkey described Harold and George for Publishers Weekly as "kind of like the yin and yang of my personality." Their nemesis is the crabby principal Mr. Krupp. After George and Harold hypnotize Mr. Krupp with a 3-D Hypno-Ring, he becomes one of their comic-book creations, Captain Underpants, whenever he hears fingers snapped. Clad in his briefs and a cape and carrying a roll of toilet paper, Captain Underpants stands for "Truth, Justice, and ALL that is Preshrunk and Cottony." Captain Underpants fights criminals such as bank robbers and robot thieves by giving them wedgies; he then confronts a mad scientist, the evil Dr. Diaper, who is intent on controlling the world. Distracting the doctor with doggy-doo, the boys and Captain Underpants save the planet; Harold and George then de-hypnotize their principal and hustle him back into his street clothes.

Pilkey illustrated The Adventures of Captain Underpants with black-and-white cartoons, but in one chapter he also included what he calls a "Flip-O-Rama," a device by which readers can flip the pages back and forth for an animation effect. Writing in Booklist, Stephanie Zvirin said that "the silliness goes overboard . . . and the many action-packed illustrations rob the plot of some of its zip by commanding more than their share of attention." Zvirin concluded, "Still, the humor is on target for some kids in this age group." According to a critic in Kirkus Reviews, "There'll be no silence in the library once readers get hold of this somewhat classier alternative to Barf-o-Rama," and a reviewer in the Horn Book noted that the story "is consistently laugh-out-loud funny." Released simultaneously by Scholastic's Blue Sky Press in both hardcover and paperback editions, The Adventures of Captain Underpants has sold more than one million copies.

The second volume of the "Captain Underpants" saga, Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets, was released immediately after the publication of its predecessor. Drawing once again from the comic books that he created as a youngster, Pilkey relates how George and Harold use school brain Melvin's science project, a copying machine that changes images into matter, to reproduce their latest comic book. Inadvertently, the boys set loose an army of teacher-eating toilets led by the evil Turbo Toilet 2000. Captain Underpants--with the aid of Wedgie Power and his Incredible Robo-Plunger--saves the school, and the boys get to become principals for a day. In Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space, George and Harold fool the cafeteria staff into baking cupcakes that flood Jerome Horwitz Elementary School with goo. After the staff quits, Principal Krupp mistakenly hires an alien trio to take their place. The aliens begin turning the students into zombie nerds, so Harold, George, and Captain Underpants are called into action and end up saving the world from an alien invasion. In Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants, the boys invoke the wrath of Professor Pippy P. Poopypants, a scientific genius who gets no respect because of his name. When chaos ensues, Captain Underpants dons his undies once again. And in the fifth installment in the series, Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman, Pilkey takes the humor to new lows (or highs, depending on the reader). With the 2002 title The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby, best friends George and Harold branch out, creating a new comic book superhero in Super Diaper Baby.

Reviewing Talking Toilets, the second volume of the series and another best-seller, Booklist critic John Peters said that it is "(d)estined to be as popular as the first book." A reviewer in Horn Book called it "(p)art graphic novel, part tongue-in-cheek parody, . . . very hip and funny." In School Library Journal, reviewer Marlene Gawron noted, "The fun is in the reading, which is full of puns, rhymes, and nonsense along with enough revenge and wish fulfillment for every downtrodden fun-seeking kid who never wanted to read a book." Adding that the cartoon drawings and Flip-O-Rama pages make the work "so appealing that youngsters won't notice that their vocabulary is stretching," Gawron concluded, "Hooray for Captain Underpants!" "Those with a limited tolerance for the silly need not apply to the Captain Underpants fan Club," wrote a critic for Publishers Weekly of the third book in the series, Naughty Cafeteria Ladies, "yet its legion members will plunge happily into his latest bumbling adventure." Sharon McNeil, reviewing book four, Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants, for School Library Journal, concluded, "With its bathroom humor, madcap pranks, gross adventures, mini-comic strips, and flip-book pages, this rollicking laugh-out-loud cartoon story is certain to be a hit, especially with reluctant readers." Reluctant or not, the "Captain Underpants" series has attracted readers in the millions. With the arrival of the fifth best-selling title, the series has a whopping twelve and a half million copies in print. Speaking to Publishers Weekly, Pilkey stated, "If my books can help kids get excited about writing and reading, that is great, but that really isn't what I was after. Really, I just wanted to make them laugh."

Pilkey is the creator of another series with roots in science fiction, the "Ricky Ricotta " books. A lonely little mouse befriends a giant robot who takes on the school bullies, rescues the city from an evil rat scientist, and saves the world from an invasion of massive mosquitoes from Mercury. Employing the Flip-O-Rama technique once again, the "Ricky Ricotta" books are geared particularly toward children with reading difficulties. Reviewing the first title in the series, Ricky Ricotta's Giant Robot, School Library Journal's Anne Connor noted, "In an accessible, highly illustrated format, Pilkey writes an adventure story with great appeal to lonely little guys everywhere." In a review of the third book in the series, Ricky Ricotta's Giant Robot Versus the Voodoo Vultures from Venus, School Library Journal's Lisa Dennis wrote, "Pilkey fans, science-fiction aficionados, and reluctant readers won't want to miss this latest installment."

In addition to the works he has written and illustrated, Pilkey has provided the pictures for Don't Pop Your Cork on Mondays!: The Children's Anti-Stress Book, a nonfiction handbook for children on the causes and effects of childhood stress by psychologist Adolph J. Moser; The Place Where Nobody Stopped, a folktale-like story by Jerry Segal about how a young Jewish man and his family change the life of a lonely Russian baker when they come to stay with him; and Julius, a humorous picture book by Angela Johnson that features an Alaskan pig who lives with an African-American family. Pilkey received special notice for this book's paintings, which are multimedia collages he composed by using fabrics and instant coffee as well as more traditional media. Writing in Horn Book, Ellen Fader noted that Pilkey's pictures "constitute an evolution from his more modest efforts," and the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books reviewer Betsy Hearne concluded that the artist's paintings "are a major factor in the hilarity. He translates a keen sense of the ridiculous into vivacious hues and wildly varied patterns without ever getting cluttered."

Pilkey once observed: "One of my biggest inspirations as an illustrator is the drawings of children. Children often send me pictures that they've drawn, and I'm always amazed at the way they present shape and color. Children are natural impressionists. They're not afraid to make their trees purple and yellow, and it's okay if the sky is green with red stripes. . . . (W)hen children are drawing, anything goes! Of course, you know that one day an art teacher is going to grab hold of these kids and turn them all into accountants, but while they are still fresh and naive, children can create some of the freshest and most beautiful art there is." He added on his Web site, "When I was a kid making silly books out in the hall, I never dreamed that one day I'd be making silly books for a living. The coolest thing is that I used to get in trouble for being the class clown . . . and now it's my job."

UPDATES
August 15, 2006: Pilkey's children's book Captain Underpants And The Preposterous Plight Of The Purple Potty People was published by Blue Sky Press. Source: Amazon, www.amazon.com, August 16, 2006.

PERSONAL INFORMATION
First name is pronounced "Dave"; born March 4, 1966, in Cleveland, OH; son of David Murray (a sales manager) and Barbara (an organist; maiden name, Pembridge) Pilkey. Education: Kent State University, A.A. Addresses: Home--Eugene, OR. Agent--c/o Blue Sky Press, Scholastic, Inc., 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

CAREER
Freelance writer and illustrator, 1986--.