Charles Geer was an American illustrator and author. He grew up on Long Island

Long Island

Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

, New York, attended Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

 in New Hampshire

New Hampshire

New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

 and then served in the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Following the war he attended art school at the Pratt Institute

Pratt Institute

Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...

.

Geer illustrated many children’s books and wrote and illustrated two of his own. He also designed numerous book jackets.

Many of the buildings in his illustrations feature Second Empire architecture, with their characteristic Mansard roof

Mansard roof

A mansard or mansard roof is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterized by two slopes on each of its sides with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper that is punctured by dormer windows. The roof creates an additional floor of habitable space, such as a garret...

s.

The illustrator lived until his death in 2008 in Rockland, Maine

Rockland, Maine

Rockland is a city in Knox County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,297. It is the county seat of Knox County. The city is a popular tourist destination...

, where he enjoyed sailing

Sailing

Sailing is the propulsion of a vehicle and the control of its movement with large foils called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and sometimes the keel or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to move the boat relative to its surrounding medium and...

 and painting watercolors

Watercolor painting

Watercolor or watercolour , also aquarelle from French, is a painting method. A watercolor is the medium or the resulting artwork in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle...

. Over the years he built several boats.

Books illustrated by Charles Geer

• The Mad Scientists' Club, by Bertrand R. Brinley
  Bertrand R. Brinley
  Bertrand R. Brinley was an American writer of short stories and children's tales. He was best known for his Mad Scientists' Club stories....
  
  
• The New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club, by Bertrand R. Brinley
• The Big Kerplop, by Bertrand R. Brinley
• The Big Chunk of Ice, by Bertrand R. Brinley
• The Marvelous Inventions of Alvin Fernald, by Clifford B. Hicks
  Clifford B. Hicks
  Clifford B. Hicks was an American writer and magazine editor, best known for his children's books chronicling the adventures of Alvin Fernald.-Biography:...
  
  
• Miss Pickerell and the War of the Computers, by Dora F. Pantell
• Miss Pickerell and the Lost World, by Dora F. Pantell
• Wild Geese Flying, by Cornelia Meigs
• McNulty's Holiday, by Rutherford Montgomery
• Sauncey and Mr. King’s Gallery, by Clara Ann Simmons
• The Biggest (and Best) Flag That Ever Flew, by Rebecca C. Jones, 1988
• The Story of Dwight D. Eisenhower
  Dwight D. Eisenhower
  Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
  
  , by Arthur J. Beckhard, 1956
• Lost in the Barrens
  Lost in the Barrens
  Lost in the Barrens is a children's novel by Farley Mowat, first published in 1956. Some editions used the title Two Against the North....
  
  by Farley Mowat
  Farley Mowat
  Farley McGill Mowat, , born May 12, 1921 is a conservationist and one of Canada's most widely-read authors.His works have been translated into 52 languages and he has sold more than 14 million books. He achieved fame with the publication of his books on the Canadian North, such as People of the...
  
  
• Sandro's Battle, by David Scott Daniell, 1962 (jacket only)
• The Pipe Organ in the Parlour, by Lilla Stirling, 1960

Books authored by Charles Geer

• Dexter and the Deer Lake Mystery (1965)
• Soot Devil (1971)
• The Pipe Organ
  Pipe organ
  The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
  
  in the Parlour (also by Lilla Stirling, 1960)

External links

• Happy 85th, Charles Geer! (Illustrator, "The Mad Scientists' Club" by Bertrand Brinley)
• familysearch.org — U.S. Social Security Death Index for Charles H Geer