Hans de Beer was born in Muiden, a small town near Amsterdam, in Holland. He began to draw in school, mostly when the lessons got too boring. In college he studied history, but he was drawing so many pictures during the lectures that he decided to become an artist. He went on to study illustration at the Rietveld Academy of Art in Amsterdam. Hans de Beer's first book, Little Polar Bear, was very popular around the world. The book has been published in thirty languages. Hans had so much fun illustrating picture books that he did more of them. He likes to draw polar bears, cats, walruses, elephants, and moles. His books have received many prizes, among them the first prize from an… international jury of children in Bologna, Italy.