Virginia Lee Burton was born August 30, 1909 in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. She studied at the California School of Fine Arts and the Boston Museum School. In the 1930s, Virginia Lee Burton began writing and illustrating children's picture books, as well as illustrating the works of other authors. Her first book, Choo Choo: The Story of a Little Engine Who Ran Away, was published in 1937. The book told the story of a little engine who decides to run away and see the world and was told in direct and "rhythmic" style with simple illustrations, a style that was to become a trademark of Ms. Burton's. The story also emphasizes theme that were also to become part of many of Ms. Burton's works for children: the machine as "heroine" and the importance of security and stability in everyone's life, along with the attainment of a "happy ending." These themes would recur in Ms. Burton's best known works, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel and Katy and the Big Snow, whose simple and direct text and illustrations provided children with a plot and characters they could identify with. Ms. Burton sued these themes again in her Caldecott Award winner The Little House (1942) that used repetition and rhythm to tell the story of a little house's life and introduce children to such concepts as the seasons, time, and change, with an ultimately reassuring happy ending. Throughout her career, Ms. Burton's books were praised by critics for their simplicity and directness that made them easy for children to comprehend and their subtle messages of everyone's need for security, stability and happiness in life. Virginia Lee Burton continued to write and illustrate picture books throughout the 1950s and 1960s, until her death on October 15, 1968.