Tomie dePaola: Hi, I'm Tomie dePaola. I wanna talk to you a little bit about my book "Look and Be Grateful." It's kind of like a poem instead of a story, and it comes from this word gratefulness. Compassion and gratitude. Looking at the sky and just being grateful that the sky is there, and it's the first time in my career as a children's book writer and illustrator that the book came to me in a sudden flash. I saw the whole thing in an instant, and I sat down, and I did it.

I used acrylic thin, like watercolor. I did it on tinted paper and for me, the page that still catches me is the page of the little boy standing, gazing out at you with his blue eyes and his red hair, and his tan skin. That page is still, when I look at it I still get a little chills.