My father leaving the family shaped who I was and how I looked at the world. By the same token, my father telling me fairy tales that he had made up shaped me profoundly, too.
I was born in Philadelphia and currently live in Minneapolis. I write for both children and adults.
This is a wonderful joke to play upon a prisoner, to promise forgiveness.
I love adventurous travel. I also love pancakes, and making pancakes for other people. You would definitely find me in the airy treetop as opposed to below ground.
Writing is seeing. It is paying attention.
Take this squirrel, for instance. Ulysses. Do I believe he can type poetry? Sure, I do believe it. There is much more beauty in the world if I believe such a thing is possible.
It distresses me that parents insist that their children read or make them read. I think the best way for children to treasure reading is for them to see the adults in their lives reading for their own pleasure.
I want to remind people of the great and profound joy that can be found in stories, and that stories can connect us to each other, and that reading together changes everybody involved.
I think of myself as an enormously lucky person.
I thought I was going nowhere. Now I can see there was a pattern.
I am single and childless, but I have lots of friends and I am an aunt to three lovely children.
I didn’t know anything about writing a screenplay, but somehow I ended up rewriting a screenplay.
When we read together, we connect. Together, we see the world. Together, we see one another.
Everything I write comes from my childhood in one way or another. I am forever drawing on the sense of mystery and wonder and possibility that pervaded that time of my life.
I always write with music. It takes me a while to figure out the right piece of music for what I’m working on. Once I figure it out, that’s the only thing I’ll play.
If the world held magic powerful enough to make the elephant appear, then there must exist, too, magic in equal measure, magic powerful enough to undo what had been done.
I hate to cook and love to eat.
It is our duty and our joy to communicate our hearts to each other. Words assist us in this task.
When you are a king, you may make as many ridiculous laws as you like. That is what being a king is all about.
Despereaux marveled at his own bravery. He admired his own defiance. And then, reader, he fainted.