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.

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

We have bodies coming home and coffins covered in flags, not just in the UK but world-wide.

I write fiction. I make things up, it's what I do.

A lot of children, like I did, move away from words because of the fear - which is something you have to take out of education: the fear of worrying about what marks you'll get, detention, worrying about letting people down, your parents, teachers.

As a young child my attention span was, as I remember it, rather short.

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.