Chris Van Allsburg
Chris Van Allsburg
Chris Van Allsburgis an American illustrator and writer of children's books. He has won two Caldecott Medals for U.S. picture book illustration, for Jumanjiand The Polar Express, both of which he also wrote; both were later adapted as successful motion pictures. He was also a Caldecott runner-up in 1980 for The Garden of Abdul Gasazi. For his contribution as a children's illustrator he was 1986 U.S. nominee for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international recognition for...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth18 June 1949
CountryUnited States of America
Peter Rabbit's not a rabbit. Peter Rabbit is a proxy for the child who reads the book, and they imagine themselves in the rabbit's position.
As long as I can remember, I've always loved to draw. But my interest in drawing wasn't encouraged very much.
In the same way that a mundane object can have a personality somehow, I try to suggest that a mundane setting can have some menace behind it.
If I'm not working on something, I'm eager to work on something because it's so gratifying.
A good picture book should have events that are visually arresting - the pictures should call attention to what is happening in the story.
The crudest thing I've done as a teacher was to require students to write a national anthem for their country and sing it themselves.
I love the idea of a tiny window between the back stoop and the pantry, where the milkman would pass through the cheese. But of course, there is no milkman anymore. So somebody coming by the house and seeing the window would say, 'Oh, that must be original, because that's where the milkman passed the cheese through to the pantry.'
I'm not a perfectionist. I'm just very observant.
If you don't know where you're going, stop racing to get there. -- from Just Desert by M. T. Anderson