Despereaux marveled at his own bravery. He admired his own defiance. And then, reader, he fainted.

The Tale of Despereaux came at the request of Luke, my friend's then-eight-year-old son, who asked, "Write for me the story of an unlikely hero with exceptionally large ears."

I would hesitate to say the characters [ in Bink & Gollie] are too related to either to us [me and Alison McGhee], but they certainly draw on our physical traits and personality traits and then exaggerate them to the nth degree.

Reading might not be the way that the child engages with the world, but it should be something that they all learn how to do, and that they get to have for themselves, as opposed to somebody telling them what to do and how to do it.

Most of my books begin with an image or a voice - one small thing - and I don't know what it is going to become.

My father leaving the family shaped who I was and how I looked at the world. By the same token, my father telling me fairy tales that he had made up shaped me profoundly, too.

Despereaux marveled at his own bravery. He admired his own defiance. And then, reader, he fainted.