For children: I'm writing a picture book about the Big Dipper and a novel about a cricket, a firefly and a vole. For grownups: I'm writing poems.

I believe, sometimes, that the whole world has an aching heart.

It distresses me that parents insist that their children read or make them read. I think the best way for children to treasure reading is for them to see the adults in their lives reading for their own pleasure.

The world is dark, and light is precious. Come closer, dear reader. You must trust me. I am telling you a story.

I am busier now than I ever imagined I would be, but I feel blessed in that I have found what I am supposed to be doing with my life. It's wonderful to tell stories and have people listen to them.

We [me and Alison McGhee] probably wouldn't have said that when we were writing the stories, but it is so apparent to me in the finished product. For me, looking at Bink, it's like looking at myself on the page in a way that I've never experienced with any other book that I've written.

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.