I've never made much of an effort to appeal to any set age group. I do my books for myself as much anyone. But grown-ups tend to like my books as much as kids do. Today's families seem so hazed by MTV, Nintendo, and other techno-cherry bombs that maybe my books are a soothing alternative. I do blissful, high adventures where everyone is kind, good, witty, brave, frightfully well-dressed and where everything works out OK.

Do your books come out of your own experience?

Yup. A Day with Wilbur Robinson is just an exaggerated version of my own childhood. I was raised by a congenial horde of southern screwballs. Everyone over fifty had dentures, which were always being misplaced and mixed up. We sometimes played shuffleboard with them. My grandfather had the added bonus of a glass eye that he swore to me could see even when outside his head. I had an uncle who convinced me he was from another planet. They were an odd and independent lot. We had artists, bongo players, photographers, opera singers, actors, and geologists all in the same family, And we had a demented number of pets: mice, fish, dogs, ducks, geese, a horse, something we called a horny toad, and at the beginning of every spring an aquarium full of tadpoles that became by summer's end a house full of frogs. Needless to say, with a household like that, writing and illustrating came to me very easily.

What are your main influences as an artist and author?

I'm first generation TV brat. My brain was welded to the solid state circuitry of our RCA Viewmaster black-and-white television set. Every day and night I saw Men of Steel, flawlessly heroic dogs, invaders from outer space, sword-fighting Spaniards, incredible shrinking men, monsters galore, cartoons of the gods — all the past, present and future pulp the tube had to offer. Plus comic strips, my family, and illustrators — Maurice Sendak, Beatrix Potter, N.C. Wyeth, Robert Lawson, Maxfield Parrish. All of my books reflect these influences. George Shrinks is King Kong in reverse. Nicholas Cricket is Casablanca with bugs. In Dinosaur Bob I have a dinosaur who visits New York, but doesn't die. In Bently & egg I have a tree frog who's as dashing and heroic as Robin Hood. A Day With Wilbur Robinson is a cross between Leave It To Beaver, Dr. Doolittle, The Absent-Minded Professor, Invaders from Mars, and my own family. In Santa Calls, I mix together everything else I loved. There are elements of The Wizard of Oz, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Davy Crockett, The Lone Ranger, Rin-Tin-Tin, Little Orphan Annie, Jules Verne, and the Warner Brothers cartoons.