At first, I see pictures of a story in my mind. Then creating the story comes from asking questions of myself. I guess you might call it the 'what if - what then' approach to writing and illustration.

Certain peer pressures encourage little fingers to learn how to hold a football instead of a crayon. I confess to having yielded to these pressures.

its not bad to be different. Sometimes it's the mark of being very very talented.

The idea of the extraordinary happening in the context of the ordinary is what's fascinating to me

I don't think ordinary things are very interesting, so I try to imagine a world that is less ordinary.

The Polar Express was the easiest of my picture book manuscripts to write... Once I realized the train was going to the North Pole, finding the story seemed less like a creative effort than an act of recollection. I felt, like the storys narrator, that I was remembering something, not making it up.

An award does not change the quality of a book.