If my books can help children become readers, then I feel I have accomplished something important.

I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn't be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.

Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous...

When you're writing a book, with people in it as opposed to animals, it is no good having people who are ordinary, because they are not going to interest your readers at all. Every writer in the world has to use the characters that have something interesting about them, and this is even more true in children's books.

Whatever the readers feel when they're reading my books, I feel it tenfold when I'm writing it.

Had I not had children of my own, I would have never written books for children, nor would I have been capable of doing so.