My Mother was a very wild Australian woman. When we were in Africa she could kill a snake with one blow from a crow bar, which she kept at the back door.

The fire of literacy is created by the emotional sparks between a child, a book, and the person reading.

As everyone knows, nothing is sweeter than tiny baby fingers and chubby baby toes.

DO NOT attempt to bring up other people's children through your text.

I think that my favourite animal is a baby possum, or a joey. The face of a really little joey is so divine - so, so gorgeous.

If we are always reading aloud something that is more difficult than children can read themselves then when they come to that book later, or books like that, they will be able to read them - which is why even a fifth grade teacher, even a tenth grade teacher, should still be reading to children aloud. There is always something that is too intractable for kids to read on their own.

I don't go to church much anymore, but Methodist values still wind me up and send me ticking into my daily life.