I was thinking one of the great things about fiction is we, as a race, only get to look out of our own eyes at the world. And fiction is a fantastic way of looking out through somebody else's eyes.

From meetings and partings none can ever escape. Nor from magic.

Right," said Fat Charlie conversationally. "You realize, of course, that this means war." It was the traditional war cry of a rabbit when pushed too far.

Her other mother smiled brightly and the hair on her head drifted like plants under the sea.

You know, I'm normally so sanguine. But... being accused of rushing these two books out to cash in on the Newbery Medal, without access to time travel equipment or anything, just makes me want to bang my forehead gently against a tree for half an hour. Is it too much to ask people to think?

We have an obligation to read aloud to our children. To read them things they enjoy. To read to them stories we are already tired of. To do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them just because they learn to read to themselves. Use reading-aloud time as bonding time, as time when no phones are being checked, when the distractions of the world are put aside.

It sounded like a piece of blackboard being dragged over the nails of a wall of severed fingers.