Matthew Reinhart, in his own words: I was born to Gary and Judith Reinhart in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in September of 1971. My dad soon joined the Navy as a jet fighter pilot, so we moved around a lot when I was young. Florida, Texas, Illinois, California, Virginia, South Carolina -- all over! Dad wanted to be more than a pilot (which was pretty amazing itself) so he went to dental school and studied to be an oral surgeon. Mom and I followed along, and soon we were joined by my little sister, Erin. Often times, Dad's training took him to places we couldn't always follow (even on aircraft carriers), so Mom took care of us. My childhood was filled with good times -- I don't think it could have been much better. Actually, I've never really felt like it ever ended!
Art was always a tremendously huge part of my life. Drawing pictures and making crafts were my favorite activities in school and out. I drew whenever and where ever I could! My school notebooks often had more drawings than notes. I loved animals (and still do) so I drew them everywhere. Dinosaurs, like I think about every kid on the planet, were my favorite and I could rattle off the name of every single one before I could add or subtract. As I got older, I was captivated by the movie Star Wars. The richness of the universe George Lucas created on the screen fueled my young imagination. Creatures, monsters, spaceships, and action heroes filled my many sketchbooks growing up.
Like most high school graduates, I wasn't completely focused on a career. I didn't know there were cool jobs like paper engineer (that's a pop-up designer, in case you didn't know) or that I could make a living being a children's book illustrator. Like most doctors' children, I was convinced to study biology to prepare for medical school. College was great, but I wasn't really happy. Medicine was not my calling. I'd always taken art classes along with my biology courses, so I had built up a bit of a portfolio. I moved to New York after college, and met Robert Sabuda, paper engineer extraordinaire, doing some volunteer work. His book, Christmas Alphabet had just come out, and he told me he had studied at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. I was inspired -- so, with the blessing and support of my understanding parents, I enrolled as an industrial design (specifically toy design) student the following year.
Pratt was fantastic, though my initial dreams of being a toy designer soon transformed into paper engineer with the help of Mr. Sabuda. I really got into pop-ups after working with Robert on books like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, ABC Disney and Movable Mother Goose. My first big break in the pop-up world was The Pop Up Book Of Phobias, which was my first solo paper engineered book. Since then, I've gradually began to illustrate and paper engineer my own titles or occasionally co-author with Robert. So here I am!
Biography courtesy of the author's official web site.
