There is no right or wrong way to tell a story. You have to find your own way. You can get your idea from listening, looking, or imagining. Stories are everywhere. All you have to do is pay attention.

Once upon a time," he said out loud to the darkness. He said these words because they were the best, the most powerful words that he knew and just the saying of them comforted him.

I didn't start working on children's books until I got a job at a book warehouse on the children's floor. When I started reading some of the books, I was so impressed.

On the return flight from my mother in Florida , I sat next to a businessman who asked me what I did for a living. I said, "I write," and it seemed totally ridiculous in the face of what had just happened. I mean, I couldn't think of anything more pointless than telling stories. He asked, "What do you write?" I said, "I write children books."

My father leaving the family shaped who I was and how I looked at the world. By the same token, my father telling me fairy tales that he had made up shaped me profoundly, too.

I am just always, always paying attention - waiting for the words, or image, or name that will be the beginning of a story.

Love is in all of the books, and that's the connective tissue between them. There's a lot of hope in me; I can feel it. These stories are balls of light for me.