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Literature is the stringing together of pictures in words.

My books come to me in images, and sometimes the image is at the beginning of the book, and sometimes it's simply a flash somewhere in the middle.

I begin a book with imagery, more than I do with an idea or a character. Some kind of poetic image.

I have to write what I can write, and writing the text of a picture book is like walking a tightrope, if you ramble off... As my friend Julius Lester says, 'A picture book is the essence of an experience.'

As a visual storyteller, a lot is learning what to include so you're not being redundant between images and text.

Picture books are the distillation of an idea, and you have to use just the right words. I love that, and I try to use a lot of action verbs.

A tale is born from an image, and the image extends and creates a network of meanings that are always equivocal.

In the case of 'Sweet Tooth,' and in the case of a lot of stuff I do, it all starts with the image. It may be something I sketch in my sketchbooks - something that reoccurs in the sketchbooks. Eventually, a character or story line starts to grow out of that.

When you make illustrations, you're supposed to have a subtext; you're not just communicating words - you're actually adding another story altogether.

The text illustrates the pictures - it provides a connective tissue for me. I usually refine the text last, partly because pictures are harder to do, so it's easier to edit words - I use text as grout in between the tiles of the pictures.