Our great problem, is that children now know whatever they want to know - at the press of a button they can discover all horrors of the adult world. They know very early on that the world is sometimes a very dark, difficult and complex place, and the literature they read must reflect that. Otherwise we're just entertaining them to pass the time.

Often it's the latest novel that I've written that is my favourite. I'd been dreaming it for so long, living and breathing its story so that when it finally arrives as a newly published book, smelling wonderful and fresh out of the box, there is nothing like it.

If it is possible to be happy in the middle of a nightmare, then Topthorn and I were happy that summer.

Being his real brother I could feel I live in his shadows, but I never have and I do not now. I live in his glow.

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?

Wars become history all too soon and are forgotten all too soon as well, before the lessons can be learned.

I was brought up, as a lot of kids are, on 'Aesop's Fables,' 'Brothers Grimm,' 'La Fontaine,' all those sorts of things. Hans Christian Andersen is a hero of mine.