I write and illustrate picture books because I've never outgrown a deep childhood urge to enter a magical world. As a child growing up in Los Angeles, I used to wish that my huge city were more like the places in the books that I loved -- places where forests grew and seasons changed, where animals talked and people could fly,. When I wasn't reading about enchanted places, I would create my own. My favorite project was an intricate, handmade dollhouse in my closet, glimpses of which you can see in the photos here. The house was filled characters made from paper, clay, cloth, nutshells, and all sorts of scraps and found objects. Around the dollhouse I painted a mural, a fanciful landscape of forests, fields, mountains, blue skies - the world that I wished I could live in. I no longer play in a dollhouse, but I'm still making miniature worlds inside my books -- inventing characters and giving them stories and settings. My creative childhood play was the most important preparation for my adult work.