Until he lost all his money, my father was a successful north London Jewish businessman. He was unusual among his immediate family in that he was enormously cultured and had an incredible library.

My father was aloof, very strange and very distant.

Smiling back at her, it occurs to me that I've never met a mean librarian.

Some things can't be changed. They'll always happen the way they were supposed to.

It is, of course, traditional in children's literature to get rid of the parents.

My greatest fear is disappointing the reader, so each book has to be better than the one before.

My favorite part of writing a book is thinking up the ideas, and that can start a long time before I actually sit down at my desk.