 And I just started writing like little short stories about New York. And then I started submitting to the New York Times Metropolitan Diaries. I had no idea I was going to become a picture book. It follows a little boy, Ernesto, on a pretty momentous day. He gets to make the trek to school without his parents. The book's called Emergency Quarters. Growing up, when I first started to walk to school by myself, my mom would give me a quarter every single day.