Who Illustrator Lane Smith and writer Jon Scieszka
Ages Lane, 39; Jon, 44
Claims To Fame Creators of The Stinky Cheese Man, Math Curse and a new book of wacky fables, Squids Will Be Squids (Viking)
Q Each of the fables ends with a lesson, or moral. What is the most important moral in the book?
Lane: "Think about it." Those words are the biggest, so they must be important.
Jon: Yep, that's a good clue.
Q Lane, you paint with so many colors. Any favorites?
A Lots. I like glow-in-the-dark green and orange.
Q What about you, Jon? As the writer, do you have any favorite words?
A Defenestrate (de-fen-eh-strate) is a good one. It's a fancy word for throwing someone out the window.
Lane: I defenestrated a clock to see if time flies!
Q You guys make a great duo.
Jon: Yeah, like bread and butter.
Lane: We really work well together. Jon writes stuff up. I paint it up. And we both have a laugh about it and play Ping-Pong.