That you can go anywhere in America and get a book from a library is just the most amazing thing in the world. It's not a duty; it's a privilege and it's a joy. That joy is doubled and tripled and quadrupled if you read with other people.

I have not Googled myself. I have not looked at myself on Amazon. It could drive you wild.

Mercy Watson is obsessed with toast. What was blocking me was the challenge of trying to understand what she loves, what motivates her. That was the missing piece. Toast became the physical symbol of Mercy's hopefully endearing greed and obsession. Without that element in place, it didn't make sense.

I'm continually astonished with myself how different people bring out things in me that I never knew I had inside me. Each new friendship can make you a new person, because it opens up new doors inside of you.

The Tiger Rising is, again, about a motherless child. His name is Rob Horton. He is dealing with the death of his mother, when he and his father move to a new town. And two things happen the same day that Rob gets sent home. One is he meets a girl named Sistine Bailey, who is what my mother would call "a piece of work," and he finds a real tiger in a cage in the woods behind the motel where he lives with his dad. And that's the story: what happens with the Sistine tiger, the real tiger and Rob's grief.

So many miracles have not yet happened.

While we were working, we were writing about a tall girl and a short girl, which we thought was funny, because Alison's [McGhee] tall and I'm short.