I was born in the very cool city of Chicago. We didn't live there very long but long enough for me to remember riding my tricycle down the apartment building stairs. Fortunately, I only remember the fantastic ride, not what happened at the bottom.

My family moved around a fair bit so there are lots of stories. Life was full of adventure and I wonder if that was where some of my quirkiness came from. I spent a lot of time thinking. I liked to play but I like to ponder more. I entertained myself by looking at things in a slightly peculiar way. Come to think about it, I still do. The other day I made my husband crack up when I asked from my side of the bed, "Isn't it really weird that there is this flat, soft platform that we lie down on in the dark and close our eyes and just kind of go unconscious for eight hours every day?" The more I thought about this, the weirder it seemed to me. And the funnier.

I grew up liking to make myself laugh. When it was time to go into kindergarten, I had to be given a test to see if I was ready. Since I was born in October, I would have been younger than most kids and I guess they needed to make sure I could cope. One of the questions was, "What do an apple and an orange have in common?" I pondered this for a minute and said, 'They both don't wear glasses,' which became the germ of my book, Apples and Oranges: Going Bananas with Pairs, almost forty years later.

This was the beginning of my life at school, always giving answers that couldn't be called wrong exactly, but raised eyebrows. Naturally I gravitated to ART. I think with a kooky mind like mine, we can all be happy I didn't become a surgeon, asking, "I wonder what would happen to this guy's spleen if I tried to bounce it on the O.R. floor?"

So art it was. After high school I went to Philadelphia College of Art (where I met my husband) and then to Bennington College in Vermont, where I studied painting and creative writing.

After college I did so many different jobs and lived in so many different places that if I listed them, you would think that I was joking. In fact, I've learned not to mention about 75% of the things I've done, to avoid perhaps being institutionalised. But after my first son, Aidan, was born, I started tinkering with making little books for him. And in this, I found something that seemed to fit my personality perfectly. Here was a way to put my art background and my sense of humor together! Our little family kept moving (London, Oregon, and then settling in Vermont) and I kept writing, and then finally, after winning a contest sponsored by PEN, I sold my first book. Shortly after that, Luciano was born. With two children in tow, we then moved to Scotland after my husband was offered a job at the Glasgow School of Art. Since moving here, I've published several more books and have tons of ideas for more. It's been a fantastic journey. I'm thinking that all of this adventure has helped to keep my silly streak nice and strong!