I pledge to set out to live a thousand lives between printed pages. I pledge to use books as doors to other minds, old and young, girl and boy, man and animal. I pledge to use books to open windows to a thousand different worlds and to the thousand different faces of my own world. I pledge to use books to make my universe spread much wider than the world I live in every day. I pledge to treat my books like friends, visiting them all from time to time and keeping them close.

She is a real bookworm. I think she lives on print. Her whole house is full of books - looks as if she likes them better than human company.

And I plan to write a sequel to Dragon Rider.

believe me. Sometimes when life looks to be at its grimmest, there's a light hidden at the heart of things. Clive Barker, Abarat

I just did a picture book called The Wildest Brother on Earth, and you will find both of my children in there.

So it's happened, I kept thinking, you're in the middle of a story exactly as you've always wanted, and it's horrible. Fear tastes quite different when you're not just reading about it, Meggie, and playing hero wasn't half as much fun as I'd expected.

Women were different, no doubt about it. Men broke so much more quickly. Grief didn't break women. Instead it wore them down, it hollowed them out very slowly.