A good picture book should have events that are visually arresting - the pictures should call attention to what is happening in the story.

I sculpted for four or five years. Mostly for my own amusement, I decided to do a picture book, and that was kind of a turning point.

The Polar Express was the easiest of my picture book manuscripts to write... Once I realized the train was going to the North Pole, finding the story seemed less like a creative effort than an act of recollection. I felt, like the story's narrator, that I was remembering something, not making it up.

At first, I see pictures of a story in my mind. Then creating the story comes from asking questions of myself. I guess you might call it the 'what if - what then' approach to writing and illustration.

A man's action is only a picture book of his creed.

It did occur to me that certainly African-Americans are not underserved in picture books, but those books are almost all about specifically black experiences.