I didn't start out writing to give children hope, but I'm glad some of them found it.

One rainy Sunday when I was in the third grade, I picked up a book to look at the pictures and discovered that even though I did not want to, I was reading. I have been a reader ever since.

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

She was not a slowpoke grownup. She was a girl who could not wait. Life was so interesting she had to find out what happened next.

The key to writing successful YA is to keep the adults out of the story as much as possible.

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.

If you don't see the book you want on the shelves, write it.