What came first, the story or the image? “What the Animals Had to Say” explores the relationship between the creation of images and stories. As an illustrator, I often create illustrations for stories, but in this work, the images informed the stories, and both later defined the final illustrations. Beyond this process, this work is a minute version of human history, or passages of it, as some sacred books have recorded. It also depicts different facets coexisting in our own personalities that shape our behaviors. As a spiritual book, as its narrative suggests, it calls for a harmony between man and nature and within man himself. “What the Animals Had to Say” is a hybrid work rooted in oriental philosophy, similar to the five ancient books of the “Panchatantra” which were the first animal fables to appear in literature. The author hopes readers will fall in love with the characters, animals and human-like as well, with more compassion than judgment, and prays for we all make a journey of transformation from the “seven days” and “one night” into the dawn.