Quotes by Chris Van Allsburg

About Chris Van Allsburg:

Chris Van Allsburg is an American illustrator and writer of children's books. He has won two Caldecott Medals for U.S. picture book illustration, for Jumanji (1981) and The Polar Express (1985), 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 creators of children's books. He received the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Michigan in April 2012.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

There's definitely a value in being literate.

Chris Van Allsburg

The theory of isolation of certain tasks in certain hemispheres of the brain suggests I shouldn't even be able to speak, never mind write.

Chris Van Allsburg

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.

Chris Van Allsburg

My stories are often a little mysterious.

Chris Van Allsburg

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.

Chris Van Allsburg

I'm sensitive to the things I see.

Chris Van Allsburg

I'm not surprised that my books appeal to adults.

Chris Van Allsburg

It's not in the interest of the artist to think of his market.

Chris Van Allsburg

It did occur to me that certainly African-Americans are not underserved in picture books, but those books are almost all about specifically black experiences.

Chris Van Allsburg

They don't send people from large corporations to hire people to make sculptures.

Chris Van Allsburg

I don't know if what kids really want is a hamster. What they want is a dog. So the hamster ends up being a substitute: 'Well, would you accept this?'

Chris Van Allsburg

When somebody says, 'This must be a children's book,' basically they're saying, 'You must be a child.' And so my answer is, 'Well, yes, I guess I am a child.' But I don't think of myself that way.

Chris Van Allsburg

I don't like to get scared - it's not one of the emotions I enjoy. So I have to assume that if there are scary things in my books, they aren't very scary.

Chris Van Allsburg

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.

Chris Van Allsburg

People have asked me a lot, 'What comes first? The pictures or the story? The story or the picture?' It's hard to describe because often they seem to come at the same time. I'm seeing images while I'm thinking of the story.

Chris Van Allsburg

It was the case for a number of years that I was doing a book a year, but that was back when I was part-time teaching - and since 1991, I've been a parent, so that cuts into the time!

Chris Van Allsburg

I don't like to travel. Yet all my books seem to involve a journey.

Chris Van Allsburg

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.

Chris Van Allsburg

I have very positive memories of reading biographies of unusual Americans as a child.

Chris Van Allsburg

If I'm not working on something, I'm eager to work on something because it's so gratifying.

Chris Van Allsburg

Author Bio

  • NameChris Van Allsburg
  • DescriptionUS children's writer and illustrator
  • BornJune 18, 1949
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist; Children's Writer
  • WorksJumanji; The Polar Express; Zathura