Everything when I was a kid was illustrated.
I thought I was going nowhere. Now I can see there was a pattern.
But let's not speak of what might have been. Let us speak instead of what is. You are whole.
I never want to be a role model.
I want to remind people of the great and profound joy that can be found in stories, and that stories can connect us to each other, and that reading together changes everybody involved.
I didn't know at the time I was writing Because of Winn-Dixie where the story came from, but in retrospect I can see that it was a response to a terribly harsh winter here in Minnesota.