Then I had the idea of using animal characters. Not dressed up animal characters standing in for people, but animals in their real setting, behaving--mostly--the way those animals really do. They would talk to one another, but apart from that, they would be a real turtle, frog, bird, squirrel, bear, etc. I found writing about these animals in their pond and forest world enormously satisfying, and while I was writing those four small books—Turtle Dreams, Bears Hiccups, Christmas in the Forest, and Frog's Best Friend—I remembered something I had almost forgotten . . . some of my favorite books from my own childhood.