I don't think about it that much, but sometimes I am surprised by that. I sometimes wonder why I didn't turn out to be the kind of picture-book writer who has stuffed animals that go with their books. That would be okay with me.

I creep over to my chair and sit there with my notebook and my thermos of coffee. It's my best time for thinking, because I haven't started thinking about anything else yet, and the thoughts can kind of go in and out of my head.

I remember when I was working on All Alone in the Universe, and Robin Roy was my editor. When I first sent it to her, she said kids this age don't want pictures in their books.

We had a dog, Lucky, who was fourteen years old. For the last year of his life, I would take him on these walks that were long but didn't cover much distance.

With most of my books, there are some parts that pop up right away, and other parts I have to wait for.

It's really daunting when you have just spent a lot of time on something to think about tossing it out. But once you've started something better that's working right, then it's pretty easy to let the first one go.

If I could make a career out of drawing little girls hiding in corners, I would do really well.