My reading preferences are kind of all over the board - I read nonfiction, I read graphic novels.

Having a sense of fun in books is a huge, huge deal, because a lot of times kids - even me when I got to third or fourth grade - don't associate reading with fun.

A book without potty humor is like a banana split without hot fudge. It can still be good, I suppose, but you kinda get the feeling that something is missing.

I think if you can show a kid that reading can actually be fun, it can make you laugh, inspire imagination - that can make a huge difference, that can help a child who's struggling with reading to really look at it differently.

My reading preferences are kind of all over the board - I read nonfiction, I read graphic novels.

Most kids are smarter than most grown-ups. Kids see the world in black and white... They look through all the garbage and see a world run by fools and dullards and lazy people. And there's nothing they can do about it because they have no power.

My goal with The Adventures of Captain Underpants was to invent a style which was almost identical to that of a picture book - in a novel format. So I wrote incredibly short chapters and tried to fill each page with more pictures than words. I wanted to create a book that kids who don't like to read would want to read.