Not so far away, in an unassuming suburban home on Colorado Springs’ northwest side, is a secret portal that can instantly whoosh Luke Flowers back to his childhood.

It’s the multitude of Kermit the Frogs that first catch your eye upon entering his Creative Cave, what the New York Times bestselling children’s book illustrator likes to call the small room on his home’s main floor. Prints and paintings of green frogs adorn the wall above a shelf lined with “Sesame Street” toys. Below are cabinets stuffed with a record player and scores of records of varying genres, including Halloween tunes that he listened to while drawing monster-themed books.

Perched on a shelf are two homages to Muppets creator Jim Henson: “The Muppet Christmas Carol: The Illustrated Holiday Classic” and “Jim Henson’s Labyrinth: The ABC Storybook,” both illustrated by Flowers.

“Jim Henson has been my creative hero since second grade, when I first started to think about being an artist,” Flowers said. “Seeing ‘Sesame Street’ and Muppet movies – the characters and the storytelling were so great.”

In the corner stands a tall coat rack of sorts, only these hooks hold old puppets from Flowers’ childhood: a few Kermits, a Grover, a cat with a cast, and other unidentified characters. Not seen: the two closets full of odd-looking puppets Flowers likes to snag from eBay.

The childhood puppets accompany him on school outings, where he voices the puppet as it reads his books to kids. The closet puppets are used solely to make funny videos for himself and social media.

Against another wall is a bookcase packed with children’s books. Dozens of both well-loved and new Little Golden Books, Garfield and Choose Your Own Adventure books are sandwiched in between a collection of his popular Moby Shinobi series, starring a ninja kid, that’s sold more than a million copies, and books by his favorite children’s author, Shel Silverstein.

Ten of those Little Golden Books, the slim, square kids’ books with the golden binder, were written by Flowers, including biographies of Henson, Steven Spielberg and Elvis Presley. It’s a dream come full circle to now be the author of the type of books he loved decades ago.

“They were so iconic as a kid. These illustrations are equally as powerful as the words,” he said. “I love that way of storytelling that’s inviting you into this book and this world, and it’s a character you kind of know but they’re bringing you along on the adventure. I wanted to tell stories like that.”

Also squeezed in to his stacks are two more New York Times bestsellers: “Just Try It” and “Just Try It! Someplace New!” Flowers did both with Netflix star Phil Rosenthal and his daughter and restaurateur, Lily Rosenthal Royal. Phil is the Phil of the streaming platform’s world-traveling documentary food series “Somebody Feed Phil.” He also created the award-winning CBS comedy “Everybody Loves Raymond.”

The Phil and Lil Book Series features Phil and a child version of Lily, named Lil, as cartoon characters. Phil tries to get his young daughter to try new stuff, and Lil must bulk up her courage. The first book debuted in 2024, and the second arrived in March. Two more books are planned.

“What’s been so fun about this series is Lil’s reactions to food. You make the emotions really big, so kids are like I get that emotion,” Flowers said. “In this one, we played up the worry. That’s what this series is about – kids’ emotional reactions to new things, scary, uncertain things. The fun I have is coming up with what the food trucks are going to look like, or the characters, the emotions.”

Raised by Jim Henson

Flowers grew up on his family’s small farm in Buena Vista, and graduated from Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, where he studied illustration.

After moving to Colorado Springs, where his wife had family, he began working to break into the illustration business. It wasn’t easy to get a job as an in-house illustrator or illustrating children’s books without moving to New York City, so he worked in the Christian ministry Young Life’s creative department for several years. On the side, he worked for Highlights Magazine, illustrated self-published books for friends, and designed bottle labels for Bristol Brewing Co., all to build up a portfolio.

Whimsical is how he often describes his work.

“And a lot of fun details in the background, like Richard Scarry books, like there are always characters in the background to find,” Flowers said. “That’s what kids enjoy – the reread and noticing there’s this little story going on in the background.”

His big break came while attending a Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference in NYC. Someone at Scholastic, a publishing company, saw one of his illustrated postcards and loved one of his characters. They asked him to create a series about a ninja kid, which became the eight-book Moby Shinobi series that he both wrote and illustrated, starting in 2015.

Since then, it’s been a long game of Connect Four, where one book leads to a new publisher and to a new book. One serendipitous surprise came after Flowers watched “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” the 2018 documentary about Fred Rogers.

“As I came out of the theater, I said someone should do a really fun children’s book about him, and then not a month later, Quirk Books and Fred Rogers Productions contacted me,” he said.

They’d found him thanks to a pop art exhibit in Los Angeles, which featured pieces from his “Raised by Rainbows” series – small drawings in different themes, like puppets, ’80s characters and children’s book characters, arranged in a rainbow pattern. One of them contained a drawing of Mr. Rogers.

The result was the 2019 book “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: The Poetry of Mister Rogers.”

“I’ve done 85 children’s books in 11 years,” Flowers said. “A lot of stuff is putting things you’re interested in out there, and people finding it, or the publisher sees it.”