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[Editor's note: Throughout their week of blogging, Caspar and Kate have invited questions from their readers and fans. To close out the week, we're presenting a few of the questions, along with Caspar and Kate's answers.]

Jeffrey B.: What's it like when you're not working? What do you do and think about?

Caspar: That is an interesting question! In some ways I am never not working. I am always hearing things in the world that make my musical song machine turn on in my brain. A little hum from a distant lawnmower or the click-click of a turn signal in a rented truck can get the songs flowing!

I just finished reading a book by Eckhart Tolle called The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. The take-away from the book is that life gets really really rich when you slow down. So I do. If I have to do something that has nothing to do with songwriting I just slow down and get deep into ...

Kate: What are some of your favorite rock bands? Do they influence any of your music for kids?

Caspar: That is a good question! I love me some primitive rock and roll. Chuck Berry is a big influence. He took the blues and made something fun and young and vital out of it. He was writing songs about teenagers. He almost invented teenagers! The springy bounce of his music really moves me.

Moving up in time I would next pick the Stooges. That primal guttural core of animal energy is amazing. I know that does not come out in my Caspar stuff that much but it does at least in my mind with the Presidents. Somewhere buried deep down I am feeling something like Iggy Pop might feel when I play for the babies. It is pretty deep though!

If we are talking about ROCK bands like AC/DC or Soundgarden or Judas Priest, then I would say that there is virtually no influence in the Caspar thing. I may pull a feeling out of Devo or the Cars or the B-52s now and again, but the major influences ...

Kate: What do you think about making songs for kids that are scary?

Caspar: Do you mean scary kids?? Hee Hee! I think that there is a rich tradition of dark and scary elements in kid's music and story books. Most nursery rhymes started out as political cartoons and were linked to pretty gruesome events in the world of kings, queens, and the clergy. The news of rivalries and jealousies and political warfare were disguised as innocent rhymes to enable the news to travel from town to town without the threat of persecution from the state. There are still obvious remnants of this dynamic in songs like "Three Blind Mice."

I like to keep a tiny tiny touch of that darkness in some of my songs in the form of giving inanimate objects an inner life and making them lost or lonely. I love the idea of something that feels sad or disconnected trying to find its place in the world. I think that a child that is cared for in a loving household feels very safe with its parents but can feel as it grows up that ...

Kate: What is the weirdest way that you have ever come up with a song?

Caspar: Well, actually today I just came up with a song about a baby that tries to run away from its parents and be free. The rhythm and the key for the song came from the turn signal on a big truck that I was driving to move furniture into a little woodland cabin on an island. I stopped at the edge of the lot to turn left and start my trip, and the turn signal was so musical and clicky and rhythmic and xylophone-like that it immediately made this old lilting tune come to mind. I started to sing about a baby coming down from the sky bathed in light and love. It was pretty magical and silly.

Then I thought of this comedian named Jim Gaffigan that does a routine about his child and how that child will reach for the handle on the door and try to get out of the house. He wonders in amazement at what the child could possibly ...

Caspar: How does outsider art, primitive art and classic children's book illustration influence your work? What do you take from each of those genres?

Kate: I don't really pay attention to other children's book illustrators. I do love old time collagers like Leo Lionni, Eric Carle, and Jack Ezra Keats. Outsider art and primitive art are large influences in my artwork. I appreciate art coming from an untrained eye; there's a sweetness and purity to it that I find really appealing. I'm also a fan of Inuit art from Alaska and Canada. Inuit artists do not always render wildlife realistically. There is a sense of whimsy and magic to the style of their art that I hope to capture in some of my images.

Sometimes I will render specific types of birds — Stellar's Jays, Kingfishers, and Pileated Woodpeckers are a few of my favorites. Other times, printed paper, color combinations, and rubber-stamp images will dictate the type of "made-up" bird I create.

Outside art and Inuit art has helped me to lose some ...