Reader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.

Everything when I was a kid was illustrated.

When I journal, I write about images that I've seen that I think might make good stories. I write about things that I hear that I think I can turn into a story. I write about the story that I'm working on and where I think it might go.

I think that that's part of how people have responded to The Tiger Rising. It's what I call my dark child. It's gotten sandwiched in between two overachieving, tap-dance-performing kids - Winn-Dixie and Despereaux.

If the world held magic powerful enough to make the elephant appear, then there must exist, too, magic in equal measure, magic powerful enough to undo what had been done.

Rob Horton, the main character of The Tiger Rising, was a secondary character in an adult short story I wrote, and he wouldn't go away after I'd finished the short story. I couldn't figure out what he wanted, so I wrote to find out.

This is the danger of loving: No matter how powerful you are, no matter how many kingdoms you rule, you cannot stop those you love from dying.