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.

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

I grew up before there were strict leash laws.

I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.

Problem solving, and I don't mean algebra, seems to be my life's work. Maybe it's everyone's life's work.

I have lovely memories of Los Angeles in the 1930s. I came down to live with my mother's cousin and they invited me to come and go to junior college for a year.

My mother would read aloud to my father and me in the evening. She read mainly travel books.