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.

Teachers have to respect the privacy of students' creative life, but at the same time give them a chance to express themselves.

I loved being a child. If I do have a talent, it's not so much being an artist, but it's being able to remember back to that time.

I knew that I wanted to be an illustrator since I was in kindergarten. I can remember the exact day. The art teacher usually came to our classroom once a week, but she was absent that day. Instead, our regular teacher gave us each a huge piece of paper and crayons, and we could do whatever we wanted.

I just love to draw. It's very intense for me. The day will just go by like the snap of a finger. A lot of times I'll draw or paint late into the night. When I am really concentrating, I kind of lose track of what I am doing.

I love children because that's a part of my life that was so happy, and I like to remember back to those days where everything is a discovery, and the world is so fresh.

A lot of times it's the child that sees something and not the grownup. I love that because, when readers get older, they start looking for the most important ideas in the story. They don't look at things in the same way anymore. Children haven't really learned to do that yet. They take all their great, intellectual skills, look at the full page, and appreciate all of the different things.