As long as I can remember, I've always loved to draw. But my interest in drawing wasn't encouraged very much. Growing up in the 1950s, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, boys were supposed to be athletic. Certain peer pressures encouraged little fingers to learn how to hold footballs rather than crayons. My early love for drawing developed into a love for telling stories through pictures. Stories began as fragments   of pictures in my mind. I created a story by posing questions to myself. I called it the "what if" and "what then" approach. For example, for my book The Polar Express, I started out by thinking "What if a boy gets on that train? Where does he go?" From the time I come up with the idea, write and illustrate the book, and deliver it to the printer, it takes about seven months. First, I begin thinking of the idea. Then I imagine the pictures and the story. A good picture book should have events that are visually _ . I first consider scenes that are exciting to look at and then my challenge is to weave a story around those pictures. The next step is putting the illustrations and story down on paper. When you first look at my illustrations, you see ordinary, everyday things. But if you look closer, things might not seem quite so simple. When I'm writing a book, I always try to create something strange or puzzling in each picture. By using artistic strategies, I can give the drawing a kind of mysterious quality. All of my books are picture books, so they are generally thought of as books for children. But when I make them, I think of the books as being for everybody -- for people of all ages. When I was a kid, I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up, but now I'm really glad I became an artist and a storyteller. Why does the author mention The Polar Express?
To tell us an interesting story. To introduce his famous work. To make up a sentence with "what if". To show us how he designed his book.