My drawing when I was in kindergarten in Switzerland, age 5.

I was born in London and then we lived in Germany and Switzerland. Our family traveled a lot before moving back to the United States when I was seven. I think my early childhood has had a big influence on my books: in Switzerland we lived close to a small town surrounded by mountains, woods, lakes, orchards, fields and farms, and I often I find myself painting pictures of the things that happen in these kinds of places. The idea for one of my first picture books, All My Little Ducklings, came from a German song that I remember singing as we went to the lake to feed the ducks.

As a child, I loved to draw and paint, and I still have some of my very first pictures. But I was often bored in art class at school when the teacher told us what to do; I always had all kinds of art projects going on at home, and I enjoyed that much more. But it wasn't until I went to college that I realized I wanted to be a professional artist, and not until several years after that I decided I wanted to illustrate children's books.

I went to the University of Michigan School of Art and studied pottery, painting and printmaking, Afterwards, I returned to Europe for several years, living in London, working in an antique porcelain gallery and at a museum and traveling to Spain, France, and Italy. Then I moved to New York City and became a freelance artist. I worked in a pottery studio during the day and took classes at night at the School of Visual Arts (SVA). Gradually, I started to do more painting, and because of the style and images that were developing, I began to think of illustrating children's books. One of my teachers at SVA, Bruce Degen, helped me enormously to get a portfolio ready to show publishers, and one of the pictures in my portfolio - a class assignment illustration for the poem Who Is Tapping at My Window? by A.G.Deming - grew into my first book, which was published in 1988. I have been writing and illustrating children's books ever since.

The idea for a book usually starts from pictures I want to make. The pictures and words go through many revisions and slowly the book begins to take shape. Going through the different stages of making a book is a lot of work, but it is always enormously satisfying. I spend my days doing exactly what I love to do, and it is very gratifying that my work goes out into the world and is shared with other people. I feel incredibly lucky.

I teach children's book illustration at the School of Visual Arts, in the continuing education department. I love working with my students, helping to prepare them to break into this field. I think it takes a combination of talent, lots of hard work, determination, perseverance and a certain amount of luck!

I live in New York City. I have illustrated over 40 books (and written most of them). I have one grown daughter. She is a professional ballerina with New York City Ballet and Les Ballets de Monte Carlo.

Here is a teachingbooks.net link to a recording where I introduce myself
and talk about my name:
http://www.teachingbooks.net/pronounce.cgi?aid=458

My painting of New York City when I was about 9 years old