I believe that good questions are more important than answers, and the best children's books ask questions, and make the readers ask questions. And every new question is going to disturb someone's universe.

It doesn't matter if it's true. What matters is if, in the context of the story, it's believable.

If your story's plot offers no problems or disasters in its journey from PAGE ONE clear through to THE END, why would anyone bother reading it? So they could bathe in the lyric beauty of your breath-taking prose? Dream on.

Creating convincing characters and exciting adventures for children remains for me the ultimate challenge of imagination and craft. Young readers are the most demanding, vigilant, astonishing, and rewarding readers of all.

There are many surprises in books. And I think almost any author you speak to will tell you that there are times when you start writing a story or book which you think is going one way, and the characters take off and go somewhere else.