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.

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.

When I was little, I loved books that gave me lots of detail so that I felt like I could be transported to this other place, or, in the case of an illustration, I felt like I could walk into the page.

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

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.

Of all people, children are the ones that really understand when there's a truth there for them - an emotional truth. The characters really have to work. Children, as an audience, are very inspirational for me.

When I was little I used to wish I could talk to the illustrators because I wanted to discuss something about the books. With so many of the other art forms that children experience, such as movies and television, they don't get to control the pace.