Animals are sentient, intelligent, perceptive, funny and entertaining. We owe them a duty of care as we do to children.

It's the teacher that makes the difference, not the classroom.

Anything that gets children reading is fine.

I was never a great reader, but there were two stories I loved best: Kipling's The Elephant's Child and The Jungle Book. Deep down, I've always wanted to write a book about a wild child and an elephant.

There's a nobility in his eye, a regal serenity about him. Does he not personify all that men try to be and never can be?

Read a lot - poems, prose, stories, newspapers, anything. Read books and poems that you think you will like and some that you think might not be for you. You might be surprised.

When I write I try as far as possible to forget I'm writing it at all. I tell it down onto the page, as if I'm telling it to one person only, my best friend.