History

"If you work at it, there is no limit to what you can accomplish and to the happiness, the work of creation can bring to you."

Leo Politi

(November 21, 1908 – March 26, 1996)

AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR

 The Song of the Swallows; Little Pancho; Pedro, the Angel of Olvera Street; etc.

He was born in Fresno, California. At the age of seven, he and his family moved to Italy. When he was fifteen, he received a scholarship for Monza's Institute where his art training began. 

At the age of twenty-three, he came back to California and settled down on Olvera Street in Los Angeles where he drew and sold pictures. In 1938 he married Helen Fontes. They had two children, Paul and Susanne. 

He loved drawing children. In all his books he tried to embody certain things: the warmth and happiness of family life; his love for the people of Latin America, animals, birds, and flowers.

Leo Politi is remembered today with the Leo Politi School, dedicated in 1991.