A children's book is the perfect place where young readers can understand the world because they can take a deep breath and look at it and imagine and contemplate while they're looking at.

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.

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.

The detail in my work helps to convince me, and I hope others as well, that such places might be real.

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.

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 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.