She refers, of course, to Harry Potter. Like millions of fans worldwide, GrandPré, 46, can be pardoned for treating the young wizard as a real-life boy rather than merely the central character in British author J.K. Rowling's phenomenally successful children's book series, of which Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth and latest installment. Rowling may have given Harry life, but illustrator GrandPré gave him his good looks. Not that she's the only Harry Potter illustrator in the world (the U.K. edition, for instance, has a different illustrator), but it is GrandPré's drawings that reach the largest number of readers—some 25 million Americans—as well as those in South Korea, Poland, Portugal, Estonia and other countries. GrandPré really does know Harry intimately: Only after reading each book several times does she begin to create her signature pastel covers and the black-and-white charcoal drawings that open each chapter. "I read an English version of Harry Potter, and it wasn't as fun without Mary's pictures," says David Kirk, illustrator of the Little Miss Spider book series. Rowling apparently feels the same, says GrandPré, who met the author and her daughter Jessica, 7, for the first time about a year ago. "We had dinner together, and she told me my covers are her favorite," says GrandPré.
"Harry Potter was one of the best things for Mary," says her agent Beth Jones. "But it in no way touches the rest of Mary's talent." GrandPré was already a respected artist when Harry entered her life in 1996. So when Scholastic Inc., Rowling's U.S. publisher, asked GrandPré to illustrate a book about a boy with magical powers, she thought it sounded sweet. "But I had no idea—no one had any idea—how big Harry would become," she says, adding that she and her husband, Tom Casmer, 49, avoid even uttering Harry's name at home. "If we gave him the attention he gets outside, it would take over my work and our lives."
GrandPré first earned artistic plaudits at the kitchen table of her family's Bloomington, Minn., home. She was just 5 when she first drew Mickey Mouse for her parents, Thomas, a carpenter who died last year, and Isabelle, now 83, a retired grocery supervisor. "My parents praised me, and I was thrilled," says GrandPré, who responded by producing several more Disney characters. The youngest of four children, "Mary was always kind of a dreamer," says her sister Linda Riesgraf, 53, an accountant in suburban Minneapolis. "Even in grade school, she was so much better [an artist] than anyone else her age." After attending the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, GrandPré says, she turned down a job as an art director for Hallmark Cards to wait tables and freelance. "I wanted to do my own work," she says. "I wanted freedom." In time she got it. By the 1990s GrandPré had plenty of work, including a job as a conceptual artist for the animated movie Antz. "Kids especially are interested in the magical qualities in my work," she says.
As was Casmer, a local artist, then teaching at St. Paul's College of Visual Arts, who invited GrandPré to speak to his students in 1995. While they were impressed, he was intrigued, marrying GrandPré last June. (Her first marriage ended in 1994.) The couple—regularly visited by two kids from his first marriage—share a cozy home in St. Paul with a spacious sunlit studio that Harry Potter paid for. GrandPré has signed on to illustrate the remaining three books in the series, then plans to tackle other projects, including work on her own children's books and a portrait series on inspirational women. She expects her parting from Harry Potter to be bittersweet. "It was a little like giving birth to introduce this boy," she says. "There was power in that, but also pride—in being his mom."
Christina Cheakalos
Margaret Nelson in St. Paul
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