You experience other cultures to give you a kind of shock that makes you look at your own culture. You appreciate it more as a result of being out of it, but you also realise there are some things lacking in your culture.

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.

I think sometimes we rush through countries, ticking off the attractions, but that's missing the point.

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

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

Babies have much higher levels of stress in childcare.

Experts in literacy and child development have discovered that if children know eight nursery rhymes by heart by the time they’re four years old, they’re usually among the best readers by the time they’re eight.