Sitting Around Miserable All Day Won't Make

Bruno: "why Do You Wear Pajamas All Day?" Shmuel: "the Soldiers. They Took All Our Clothes Away." Bruno: "my Dad's A Soldier, But Not The Sort That Takes People's Clothes Away."

He Looked The Boy Up And Down As If He Had Never Seen A Child Before And Wasn't Quite Sure What He Was Supposed To Do With One: Eat It, Ignore It Or Kick It Down The Stairs.

I Don't Change The Language For Children Books. I Don't Make The Language Simpler. I Use Words That They Might Have To Look Up In The Dictionary. The Books Are Shorter, But There's Just Not That Much Difference Other Than That To Be Honest. And The Funny Thing Is, I Have Adult Writer Friends [to Whom I Would Say], "would You Think Of Writing A Children's Book?" And They Go, "no, God, I Wouldn't Know How." They're Quite Intimidated By The Concept Of It. And When I Say To Children's Books Writers, Would They Write An Adult Book, They Say No Because They Think They're Too Good For It.

I Hope For So Much From Every Book I Read. And Time And Again, I Find Myself Disappointed. I Look Across My Bookshelves And See Hundreds Of Titles Which In My Memory Seem Merely Mediocre Or Second-rate. Only Occasionally Does A Novel Appear For Which I Feel A Lasting Passion, A Book That I Think Could In Time Become A Classic.

I Was A Very Quiet Child, Quite Introverted, Really. Independent, Yes; I Didn't Need A Lot Of Supervision. Less So Than I Did When I Got Older, Maybe. But I Was A Bookish Child, Not Surprisingly. I Could Sit Quite Happily In A Corner For Hours And Entertain Myself With Books.