Otis was inspired by a boy who sat across the aisle from me in sixth grade. He was a lively person. My best friend appears in assorted books in various disguises.

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.

I feel sometimes that in children's books there are more and more grim problems, but I don't know that I want to burden third- and fourth-graders with them.

The humiliation that Jane had felt turned to something else--grief perhaps, or regret. Regret that she had not known how to act with a boy, regret that she had not been wiser.

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

I don't think children's inner feelings have changed. They still want a mother and father in the very same house; they want places to play.

I had a very wise mother. She always kept books that were my grade level in our house.