Greg Pizzoli prefers to start his day while his kids are still asleep. “I like to get one cup of coffee in before they stumble down the stairs,” he said.

Pizzoli, who lives in Bella Vista, is the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award-winning creator of the Baloney and Friends graphic novel series and the author and illustrator of several picture books, including The Watermelon Seed, Good Night Owl, and Pizza! A Slice of History.

He moved to Philadelphia in 2006 for a year of AmeriCorps service at Temple University and never left. After earning a graduate degree in printmaking and book arts at the University of the Arts, Pizzoli spent years balancing day jobs, teaching, and freelance illustration before landing his first children’s book contract in 2011.

Since then, he has been writing and illustrating full-time, often using animals as his main characters. Doing so, he says, allows him to “turn the heat up” on feelings like anxiety until they become silly enough for kids to laugh at while still recognizing them.

“A lot of my books are supposed to be really funny,” Pizzoli said. “They’re big story-time books.” But his latest book, When the Sun Goes Down, is different. The bedtime picture book is “made for that special moment where you’re reading books to your kids before bed,” he said.

On his perfect day, Pizzoli keeps things close to home: coffee in the Italian Market, pizza in a community garden, dessert from John’s Water Ice, and time on his steps with neighbors before the family’s nightly dance party, preferably to anything other than Shakira.

I wake up at 6 a.m. I have a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old, so I usually wake up before them and get one cup of coffee before they stumble down the stairs at like 6:30. Then I’ll read them some books. That’s how we start our day. We read some Greek myths recently. We read about Persephone and Hades.

Around 7, I’ll say it’s time to eat breakfast and get ready for school. Breakfast in our house is just Cheerios, toast, and fresh fruit. Then I walk them to school. One of the things I love about our neighborhood, and Philly in general, is that you can walk anywhere.

After drop-off, I walk to my studio in Queen Village. It’s an easy walk from my home in Bella Vista.

On a perfect day, I’ll go a little out of my way and stop at Gleaners Cafe in the Italian Market. Gleaners is the punkest and friendliest coffee shop in the city. I love that they have no Wi-Fi, so customers actually interact and talk with one another. They always have an art show going on, and they have a library with a lot of my books.

I’ll just get a black iced coffee or a hot coffee with oat milk. I’m pretty simple with that stuff.

My first stop after coffee is usually Fishbox. It’s a package delivery service.

My studio is in a converted rowhome, so there’s no mail room. If I get stuff delivered there, it’ll get stolen. This guy named Napoleon runs Fishbox, and it’s great. I get a lot of stuff delivered because publishers are always sending me proofs of new books, so I stop by there every morning to get my mail.

Once I’ve got my mail, I go to the studio and work for a couple of hours.

My wife, Kay Healy, is an artist too. She makes books, comics for kids, picture books, and these huge installation art pieces. We share the studio. I have the whole second floor, and she has the whole third floor.

She usually comes in a little after me because she goes for a run with our dog. She’ll go upstairs to work on her stuff while the dog plops herself on the couch near me.

On an ideal day, Kay and I would go out for lunch. We’d go to either New Wave Cafe or Lightbox Cafe. At New Wave, I’ll get a burger and fries. At Lightbox, the falafel is really good.

Both restaurants are near Fabric Row on Fourth Street. Back in the day, I think it was all fabric shops. Now there are a lot of cool little stores and boutiques. After lunch, I’ll hit up the shops.

My favorite used bookstore in the city is Brickbat Books. If I need inspiration or just need to get out of my own head in the afternoon, I’ll go there. They sell books, comics, and records. They have great taste. Or, I’ll go to Partners and Son, a comic shop around the corner, or to Atomic City Comics on South Street.

Philly AIDS Thrift is great too. I was just there the other day and bought this used book. It’s the life’s work of a counterfeit stamp maker. He made fake stamps and sold them to stamp collectors. It had all of his graphics. I’m going to collage them somehow.

Once I’m done browsing, I’ll go back to the studio. I tend to write in the morning and draw in the afternoon, so I’ll draw for a few hours. This ideal day has more than 24 hours, obviously, but that’s fine.

I pick up my kids from school around 3. If it’s a beautiful sunny day, we’ll go chill in Washington Square for a while. I’ll let them run around the fountain, and we’ll play in the grass. Washington Square is just beautiful this time of year.

On an ideal day, I will have remembered to bring snacks for them.

After the park, we’ll wander down to our local library, Charles Santore Library. Santore is great because they have a great children’s book section, but they also have crayons and coloring stuff. If the kids don’t want to grab books, they can just sit there and draw, which we often do.

After that, we’ll pick up our holds and grab whatever movies we had waiting.

We still get DVDs from the library. We have a PS5 at home, so we can watch them. The kids are very into Hayao Miyazaki movies right now. They love Ponyo and My Neighbor Totoro. They’re beautiful films.

For dinner, we’d get pizza from the Pitruco Pizza truck. My favorite pizza from them is the mushroom pizza. They also have a delicious eggplant pizza with whipped ricotta.

Once a week, they stake out a corner near Palumbo [Rec Center]. Palumbo is this huge green space in our neighborhood. It’s a full city block. There are slides and a huge field with a baseball diamond.

We’ll grab pizzas from Pitruco and either eat at Palumbo or take them to our community garden.

Kay has had a community garden plot for maybe 12 years. It’s mostly Kay’s. I water it occasionally.

The community garden has tables set up, so we can bring food there and eat. We did this last night, actually. We got pizza from Pitruco with some friends and took it to the garden.

The kids can water the plants and dig for worms while we catch up.

When it’s time for dessert, we’ll wander over to John’s Water Ice. It’s my favorite ice cream spot. The kids will get water ice, and I’ll get cookies-and-cream ice cream. I love John’s because you see everybody in the neighborhood there. It’s inexpensive, too. It’s like $3.50 for a big cone of ice cream, and even cheaper for water ice.

We’ll probably take the ice cream back to our stoop and hang out outside. We’ll talk to our neighbors while the kids ride bikes. We live on a small street, so they can ride without us worrying about cars.

In our house, we have a tradition of having a dance party every night before bath and bed. Everybody gets to pick a song.

On my ideal day, the kids will take pity on me and pick something other than Shakira. They love that Shakira song from Zootopia, “Try Everything.” They listen to it every night. I’m ready for a new song.

So, on my ideal day, one of them picks the Breeders, and the other picks the Ramones. My kids actually love “Drivin’ on 9” by the Breeders.

The last thing we do before bed is read a few books. Maybe my new one, When the Sun Goes Down. We’ll sing some songs, and then we’ll all go to sleep.