I don't necessarily start with the beginning of the book. I just start with the part of the story that's most vivid in my imagination and work forward and backward from there.

Writers are good at plucking out what they need here and there.

I enjoy writing for third and fourth graders most of all.

I don't necessarily start with the beginning of the book. I just start with the part of the story that's most vivid in my imagination and work forward and backward from there.

We didn't have television in those days, and many people didn't even have radios. My mother would read aloud to my father and me in the evening.

What interests me is what children go through while growing up.

All her life she had wanted to squeeze the toothpaste really squeeze it,not just one little squirt. [...] The paste coiled and swirled and mounded in the washbasin. Ramona decorated the mound with toothpaste roses as if it was a toothpaste birthday cake