Diana Ross

Diana Patience Beverly Ross (8 July 1910 – 4 May 2000) was an English children's author. A graduate of the Central School of Art in London, she also worked on sculpture and graphic arts and illustrated several of her own books under the name of her cat, Gri. Life and work Ross was born in Malta where he father was in command of . She was educated in Britain and in Paris, and read history at Girton College, Cambridge. In her early twenties, Ross worked at the Grenfell Mission orphanage in St. Anthony, Newfoundland, and would later help Wilfred Grenfell to research his history, The Romance of Labrador, as well as – without credit – drawing the book's illustrations. Beginning with The Little Red Engine Gets a Name (1942), followed by The Story of the Little Red Engine (1945) and seven more volumes, Ross created a series of picture books which followed the adventures of the same character. Jan Le Witt and George Him provided the illustrations for the first volume and Leslie Wood its sequels.