It's full of depressing details about the children's lives, ... and, I'm sorry to say, it's the longest in the series. So in terms of total misery, it's quite a lot to deal with well, both in terms of the number of pages and the amount of misery per page.

I'm sorry, got too close.

When you start writing a picture book, you have to write a manuscript that has enough language to prompt the illustrator to get his or her gears running, but then you end up having to cut it out because you don't want any of the language to be redundant to the pictures that are being drawn.

This is like a cookie, it tastes like a cookie having sex with a doughnut.

For every girl I thought I was uncomplicated sex, it wasn't. Put it this way: if you can't see the complication, you're probably it.

A library is like an island in the middle of a vast sea of ignorance, particularly if the library is very tall and the surrounding area has been flooded.