Stereotypes have their roots in truth.

People ask me all the time what it's like to work with my mother. I feel completely blessed because, first of all, this has given us an opportunity to enrich our relationship in ways we never could have imagined. Our time together is purely creative. It's unfettered by politics or the news of the day or aches and pains or family dramas or anything else. This time together is sort of golden and protected as being just creative time, which is heavenly.

I think that teachers have the hardest job in the world, and they are the most unsung heroes so much of the time.

I think you have to have a personal connection, and that's what I am always looking to try to create: a personal way in to a story.

I think every single one of us can think back on the key individuals in our lives who really made a difference, and also maybe some of those who sent us astray. There are those are the teachers who are brave enough to buck the system, and obviously not in such a way that jeopardizes their jobs, but brave enough to say, "I know I have to accomplish that, but I want to know how I'm going to help this child get there differently. I want to know what makes this child tick, and I want to help him get there from a place of curiosity, rather than from a place where I impose my ideas on him."

It might be helping to explore a story visually by going to see a museum exhibit that's relevant to something that somebody's reading, or going to see a show or listening to a piece of music or cooking a meal that's in one of the stories, something practical, something kinesthetic that draws the reader in and helps them to experience the story for themselves. Those are all ways I think we can kind of come in the back door and help kids find the joy, as opposed to the chore or responsibility, of reading.

Stereotypes have their roots in truth.