What makes a good book? Scholars and critics have been debating that question for decades. I like books that touch my head and my heart at the same time.

If you want to write, you write. Talent is simply not enough.

Stories," he'd said, his voice low and almost husky, "we are made up of stories. And even the one's that seem the most like lies can be our deepest hidden truths.

Fiction cannot recite the numbing numbers, but it can be that witness, that memory. A storyteller can attempt to tell the human tale, can make a galaxy out of the chaos, can point to the fact that some people survived even as most people died. And can remind us that the swallows still sing around the smokestacks.

Know, my son, that the enemy will always be with you. He will be in the shadow of your dreams and in your living flesh, for he is the other part of yourself.

Write, write, and write some more. Think of writing as a muscle that needs lots of exercise.

Childrens books change lives. Stories pour into the hearts of children and help make them what they become.