Bill Peet books are some of my 4-year old daughter’s favorites. We happened upon his illustrative works at grandma’s house. So it was only natural when I ordered every one of them during the holidays and saw that he also had an autobiography, that I would get to know him myself. I never thought I would blog about it here, but “Bill Peet” (Bill Peet, 1987) surprised me. While it was reflective of the vast majority of his books, mostly containing incredible drawings and concise and limited wordcount, the narrative had a strong thread of his growth as a human. This blog post is my critique of the unintentional personal development book. Each of my critiques review the key message of the book, the high-level concepts, the book’s areas of strengths, and where it falls short. I conclude each critique with an overall assessment ranking (1-10 ascending) of its effectiveness in providing the reader applicable lessons in personal and/or leadership development.
Overview: The autobiography explores the detailed and intimate life of Pill Peet from his poor, fatherless childhood in Indiana and his innate obsession with drawing, to his move to California, his slow-budding career with Disney, his relationship with Walt Disney, to his spin-off career in children’s books.
Areas of Strengths: A truly easy read with astonishing drawings that comes across heartfelt and sincere. It shows the sacrifices he made to have a family and to make ends meet and that he seems overall, happy with his decisions.
Supplemental Information: Home page for Bill Peet
Where it Falls Short: It ends pretty abruptly and doesn’t go deep enough into his later years. I also don’t know what he truly thought about Walt Disney. Lastly, I really want to ask Bill (I’m on the hunt for some of his living relatives to ask) a particular question – Looking back, would you have left Disney earlier?
Overall Assessment & Why: I rate it an 6 out of 10 in terms of a personal development book. I think its an excellent read, but it may be a stretch in gleaning prescriptive insights for living one’s full potential.