In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and - SNAP - the job's a game!

If somebody can act out one of the books as a play, if they can see a play, film, or television show that's related, that can be so stimulating for them. Anything that makes children engage and think - and love what the story is about - can only bring the most enormous rewards.

When I read to children, I try to become the characters. It's great if you can make a separate voice for each character. Sometimes you can lower your voice with excitement or get more intimate about it: you can lean forward and engage the children as a narrator or as a reader. It's particularly important that you find the voice that you want to use for each character, because then children can imagine that person as you're reading aloud. And of course, the illustrations help enormously.

I think that the best way to explain that is that my mother gave me all the color and character and flare and liveliness, and my father gave me all the sanity and nature and all the things that helped me be a more rounded human being.

I have been called a nun with a switchblade where my privacy is concerned. I think there's a point where one says, that's for family, that's for me.

I would like to make one thing quite clear. ... I never explain anything.

Growing up in England, of course you do absorb certain ways the royals wave their hands and carry themselves. Like most girls, I fantasized about being some sort of a princess.