I came to be an illustrator because back in the island of Puerto Rico, art was really my best subject in school. And when I graduated from high school, I went to went to fine arts in the university, and then I realized that if I wanted to make a living, I needed to have some more than just fine arts.
So I went to study graphic arts in Paris, France. One day, coming out of the school that I was studying in St-Germain-des-Prés, in one of the oldest streets in Paris, there was an American gallery right by the school, and I went into this American gallery that, of course, had artwork by American artists.
And there was the complete illustrations, all the illustrations from Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen. And standing in front of that artwork, I had an epiphany. I said “This is what I need to do with my life” — to become a children’s book illustrator. However, I didn’t know there was such a route until I got there.
In the island of Puerto Rico, I was not… I didn’t know there was such a
such a job
such a career as to be an illustrator of children’s books because I didn’t grow up as children grow up here in America with all these wonderful books that you find in the public library. So it was a revelation for me, and, you know, here I am 31 books later.
I am a writer, but that came later. I started as an artist, and creating characters that came out of boredom literally. One summer in Maine, out of these doodles two little characters were born, and every art director and editor that saw these characters told me go write a story for these characters.
Of course, that was the hardest thing that anybody could ask me because first I didn’t think of myself as a writer, and second, how could I write a story in English when my mother language is Spanish?