I've heard stories about authors filled with this kind of Lotto-winner hubris. I'm a Dutch boy from the Midwest. We don't have hubris.

The Polar Express is about faith, and the power of imagination to sustain faith. It's also about the desire to reside in a world where magic can happen, the kind of world we all believed in as children, but one that disappears as we grow older.

'The Polar Express' began with the idea of a train standing alone in the woods. I asked myself, 'What if a boy gets on that train? Where does he go?'

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.

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.

The whole idea of being mesmerized and not in control of your own actions is fascinating and a little spooky. I remember hearing about someone who'd gone to a magic act, and a person in the audience had become hypnotized by observing too closely what magician was doing on stage, and thought it was spooky to lose your consciousness that way.