"A baby octopus waved its little arms at me when I glimpsed it on some coral while in the ocean off the island of Okinawa when I was visiting my daughter and her husband. It wasn't until I returned home and was musing over what creatures would take the place of the three bears in my under-the-sea Goldilocks story that it dawned on me that octopuses, intelligent and mischievous, would be just right. I admired the Okinawan houses and made the Octopus house like the island ones. When I worried out loud that the octopuses looked alien, my young friend Alma suggested they wear hats. Now the setting and the clothes were Japanese.

"Back in Boston, the New England Aquarium's cold-water aquarist introduced me to Sy, their famous giant Pacific octopus. I had an 'arms on' experience with her. From then on, my characters seemed to take shape by themselves.

"Alice went down a rabbit hole to find another world. For me, I stepped off the beach in Okinawa." --Jan Brett