Reading Is Fundamental has joined with Dutton Books to produce The Art of Reading (Aug.), for which 40 of today's top children's illustrators were asked to reimagine a favorite book from their childhood that helped them along on the path to reading, writing and illustrating. Here's an excerpt from Caldecott Medalist Eric Rohmann's entry.

"I first read Millions of Cats when I was eight years old and thought I'd never seen a book so strange and so beautiful. I still marvel at the expressive black-and-white line drawings, the inventive compositions, and the millions and billions and trillions of cats. The story is bothhilarious and unexpected. ReadingMillions of Cats for the first time made me realize that there are people out there like me. I thought, maybe I can make a picture book, too."