I can't think of a story that doesn't have something terrible in it. Otherwise, it's dull. So when I embarked into the world of picture books, my first thought was to do something about the dark.

'Help me,' Allison says, but she is soft-spoken, and everyone she loves is so far away.

Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course.

I decided that it might be interesting to have terrible things happen to orphans over and over again.

If you enjoy books with happy endings than you are better off reading some other book.

...in life it is often the tiny details that end up being the most important.

It is not the diamonds or the birds, the people or the potatoes, it is not any of the nouns. The miracle is the adverbs, the way things are done. It is the way love gets done despite every catastrophe.