Chris Allsburg

The opportunity to create a small world between two pieces of cardboard, where time exists yet stands still, where people read more

The opportunity to create a small world between two pieces of cardboard, where time exists yet stands still, where people talk and I tell them what to say, is exciting and rewarding.

Each story I've written starts out as a vague idea that seems to be going nowhere, then suddenly materializes as read more

Each story I've written starts out as a vague idea that seems to be going nowhere, then suddenly materializes as a completed concept. It almost seems like a discovery, as if the story was always there. The few elements I start out with are actually clues. If I figure out what they mean, I can discover the story that's waiting.

Santa is our culture's only mythic figure truly believed in by a large percentage of the population. It's a fact read more

Santa is our culture's only mythic figure truly believed in by a large percentage of the population. It's a fact that most of the true believers are under eight years old, and that's a pity.

The Polar Express was the easiest of my picture book manuscripts to write... Once I realized the train was going read more

The Polar Express was the easiest of my picture book manuscripts to write... Once I realized the train was going to the North Pole, finding the story seemed less like a creative effort than an act of recollection. I felt, like the story's narrator, that I was remembering something, not making it up.

The idea of the extraordinary happening in the context of the ordinary is what's fascinating to me.

The idea of the extraordinary happening in the context of the ordinary is what's fascinating to me.