When you make a decision, you don't have to be locked into it. One of the ways that you grow is by starting over.

Kids are super-independent. This is the time when you don't need your parents for a story anymore. You have a great degree of agency and independence.

I also learn a lot about everybody else's process. People create in different ways, so that has opened me up to different processes and experimenting. Laurie Keller is a character person, so she came to the project with these blades-of-grass characters that we were able to literally grow a story around.

I think Laurie's Keller story 'We are growing', resonates because when you have that amount of independence, you're starting to ask yourself questions that the grownups in your life have been answering for you. Before that, you are a good kid, or you are a funny kid, because you're told that's who you are. But when it's just you and the book, you have to figure out who you are.

If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave.

Elephant and Piggie have a very large input. They have a distinct aesthetic taste. They like books that are philosophical. They like books that are dialogue-driven. They like books that are about issues that they live with, in their own elephantine and porcine ways.

I bet your mom would let me." -Pigeon, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus-