Go home and read to your adult. We forget how much we love to be read to.

The shapes arranged themselves into words, and the words spelled out a delicious and wonderful phrase: Once upon a time.

At the thought of being eaten by rats, Despereaux forgot about being brave. He forgot about not being a disappointment. He felt himself heading into another faint. But his mother, who had an excellent sense of dramatic timing, beat him to it; she executed a beautiful, flawless swoon, landing right at Despereaux's feet.

I was a kid who lived to read. It was the primary pleasure of my existence. It's still one of the primary pleasures of my existence. It's where I draw my sustenance.

There's a Buddhist precept that the only thing you deserve is the chance to do the work, and I've been given the chance to do the work.

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.

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