People may think that because I have illustrated and written all these books it must be easy for me, but it's not really easy for me. The drawing part is easy - I love doing it. But continuing to move forward is hard.

Writing a story is like going down a path in the woods. You follow the path. You don't worry about getting lost. You just go.

I would like teachers to look deep because sometimes kids do have a faade that they put up because they feel vulnerable. Their creative truth may not be ready for their friends to see.

The books take a year just to do the drawing. I will travel to a country to do the research and get ideas. Sometimes I don't travel to do research, but mostly I do. It takes a long time, but do I ever get tired of it? Not really. The characters kind of grow and evolve.

We're going to Surf City, gonna have some fun. Now, two girls for every boy.

I always feel like my book is a success when I see a child reading it, and they have their pointer finger out, and they kind of keep their place as they look all around the page. I've always been impressed by how children are so observant.

A book is something that young readers can experience on their own time. They decide when to turn the page. They'll put their arm right on the page so you can't turn it because they're not ready to go to the next page yet. They just want to look at it again, or they want to read the book over and over because they really enjoy setting the pace themselves.