Anybody who puts a book into someone else's hands inspires me - teachers, librarians, booksellers, parents.

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.

I think I'm succinct to the point of trying to write the two-word novel. Editing my work almost never means taking anything out but rather adding, because I'm always stripping down. I tend to under-write rather than over-write.

You don't realize what you're going to get, and you can't prepare yourself for it.

Did you think that rats do not have hearts? Wrong. All living things have a heart. And the heart of any living thing can be broken.

It's a book [Bink & Gollie] about shortness and tallness, so I think it's appropriate to discuss the virtues of shortness.

The origin of each story is unique.