Author

I'm just lucky. I do have very clear memories of childhood. I find that many people don't, but I'm just very fortunate that I have that kind of memory.

Children want to do what grownups do.

I like to read, walk, cook, and travel to cities. We live in the country, so we miss museums and the bustle of city life.

I think the best teachers had a real interest in the subject they were teaching and a love for children. Some of the teachers were just doing their job, but others had that little extra. They really cared about children and they wore pretty dresses.

Novels by British writers are among my favorites because our family has enjoyed travel in England and because they are written with an economy of words as if they were written with a pen instead of a computer. Penelope Fitzgerald is a favorite.

In my grammar school years back in the 1920s I used my ten-cents-a-week allowance for Saturday matinees of Douglas Fairbanks movies. All that swashbuckling and leaping about in the midst of the sails of ships!

I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library.

I don't think children themselves have changed that much. It's the world that has changed.

With twins, reading aloud to them was the only chance I could get to sit down. I read them picture books until they were reading on their own.

Quite often somebody will say, What year do your books take place? and the only answer I can give is, In childhood.

I haven't been very enthusiastic about the commercialization of children's literature. Kids should borrow books from the library and not necessarily be buying them.

I grew up before there were strict leash laws.

My favorite books are a constantly changing list, but one favorite has remained constant: the dictionary. Is the word I want to use spelled practice or practise? The dictionary knows. The dictionary also slows down my writing because it is such interesting reading that I am distracted.

When I was in the first grade I was afraid of the teacher and had a miserable time in the reading circle, a difficulty that was overcome by the loving patience of my second grade teacher. Even though I could read, I refused to do so.

I longed for funny stories about the sort of children who lived in my neighborhood.

I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.

Otis was inspired by a boy who sat across the aisle from me in sixth grade. He was a lively person. My best friend appears in assorted books in various disguises.

I think adults sometimes don't think about how children are feeling about the adult problems.

I have lovely memories of Los Angeles in the 1930s. I came down to live with my mother's cousin and they invited me to come and go to junior college for a year.

What interests me is what children go through while growing up.