I don't consciously try to take my readers on a journey as I don't really think about my readers when I'm writing. I just try to write what I feel passionately about, to tell a story down onto the page.

Don't worry about writing a book or getting famous or making money. Just lead an interesting life.

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.

I think people are more in contact now with the consequences of war than they've been for a very long time. And that's what amazes me when sometimes politicians seem to forget their history. They don't look and re-learn about what has happened before. Maybe they haven't got the memory, maybe they're already too young, but you can see how we become puffed up, and how we as a nation rise so quickly if we're not careful.

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.

We're much alike, bee, you and me," I said. "You may carry your pack underneath you and your rifle may stick out of your bottom. But you and me, bee, are much alike.

Anything that gets children reading is fine.