The Little Flower King made me want to Muddledance my way out to the garden and pick a big bouquet of tulips for our dinner table. It’s a happy story of a very, very little king who grows a kingdom full of tulips for himself. Although his tulips are beautiful and smell quite nice, the little king is lonely. And what does any lonely king need, but a queen? So the little king rides his trusty red bird across the world in search of his bride.

Of course, there are many stories about kings who go searching for their queens. But I’ve never seen pictures like the ones in The Little Flower King, and I’ve been to the finest museums in the land, from the Giggleheim, to the Mooma! The artist doesn’t try to make everything look real—even the moon has a big nose and a green mouth! It inspired me to take out my own paint box and brushes and keep working on my masterpiece, “Elephant Pirouette at Sunset.”