I feel sorry for kids nowadays, because in the majority of schools across the country, the arts have been eliminated from the curriculum. There's no art; there's no music. In some cases they've taken away the libraries. They don't do theater. And these are the things that speak to the human soul.
David SmallI think all kids feel that their lives are tough, and that they've, been given an unfair shake for one reason or another. So I think there's a lot of kids who relate to my story. They also relate to the fact that I got out of it. And I tell them that my refuge from all that was books - the library was my safe place. And the art room was my safe place because there I knew what I was doing.
David SmallOne of the glories of doing the book So You Want to Be President? was the shifts in tone, where I was able to be humorous and then very serious. And the impeachment page is certainly the best example of that. I didn't have to think too much about how to present this one. I got the idea right away that a good way of showing the shame of President Nixon would be to put him down in the shadows under the Lincoln Monument, with Lincoln sort of glaring down at him from an elevated, better-lit position.
David SmallI began drawing probably when I was - around the same time everybody else puts a mark on a piece of paper with a crayon - when I was two, probably. The difference between me and everybody else is, I kept doing it for the rest of my life; there was something very satisfying about that.
David Small