When I was in the first grade I was afraid of the teacher and had a miserable time in the reading circle, a difficulty that was overcome by the loving patience of my second grade teacher. Even though I could read, I refused to do so.

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.

I just wrote about childhood as I had known it.

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

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.

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

I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library.