When I say to a parent, "read to a child", I don't want it to sound like medicine. I want it to sound like chocolate.

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.

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.

Books don't harm kids; they arm them.

The fastest way to teach a child to read is to teach them to write.

I have very little patience with children.