Sometimes when I look back at the eleven years I lived in New York City I think about how the town was so good at randomly throwing me in the general vicinity of the authors and illustrators I admired, in kooky ways. Take Elisha Cooper. By the time I became a children’s librarian he’d already established himself with a number of picture books. From the start, his style was distinctive. Nobody’s books looked like his books. Then, I was invited to a celebration of his picture book Farm, held i...