When I wrote The Statue of Liberty, for instance, I planned at first to start with the Revolutionary War. I wanted to show how France and the United States had come to be such good friends. But when I started with the war, my two hundred words were used up before I got to the statue! So after trying a couple of other points of entrance, I finally decided simply to start with the statue itself.

I’ve also written a Christmas picture book for an editor, Alexandra Cooper, at Simon & Schuster who asked for one on a very short deadline. The first idea I tried wasn’t what she wanted. Now I’m waiting to hear her response—and the response of the editorial committee—to my second attempt.

I’ve written another picture book, too, In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb. Can you guess what that’s about? No one has asked for this one, so no one is in a hurry to see it. I’m leaving it stewing in my computer until I’m sure it’s exactly what I want it to be and until the time is right to try it somewhere. I’ll probably send it out in a few more weeks.

And I’m getting ready to start work on another picture book with Stan Tekiela, the incredible naturalist/photographer with whom I did Baby Bear Discovers the World. Through the spring, he went out and got new photos of baby animals and birds, so I’m sorting through photos that would go with a rhyming text—not written yet—to be called Some Babies. It will be a concepts book, colors, numbers, up and down, etc.