Books that kids read should be about what is going on in the world.

What's really good is that there are people making stories and writing them and the vast majority never see the light of day and it doesn't matter a fig.

I don't want to be separate from something that's important to me.

Elephants are my favourite creatures and have been since I was a boy and my mother read Kipling's The Elephant's Child to me. It was loving elephants so much that made we want to write my own story with an elephant at the centre and its bond with a child.

Theatre can transform a child's life, just as an early cultural experience whether with opera, ballet, music or art is a wonderful thing because it opens the door to a life-long experience, a life-long enjoyment.

Access to books and the encouragement of the habit of reading: these two things are the first and most necessary steps in education and librarians, teachers and parents all over the country know it. It is our children's right and it is also our best hope and their best hope for the future.

I think there's something about studying a book which will kill it if you're not careful.