I like to pretend that each book is my first one and last one, because it takes a tremendous amount of energy to do a book.

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.

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.

When I go to another country, I try to be a big sponge and look at what the houses may look like and what colors predominate. I do not do research as much as just get ideas and ask people about things.

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

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.