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.

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.

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.

Grown-ups do a lot of complaining!

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.

It used to take me forever to read and comprehend stuff, so I decided not to make the 'Captain Underpants' books too challenging. Don't get me wrong - the humor and ideas are often sophisticated - but the books aren't hard to read. I wanted kids who hate reading to find these books irresistible.