What A Gift Of Grace

The Children's Book World Has Given Me Wonderful Friendships And An Unbelievably Rich Life.

Still, I Kept Writing. I Had No Guarantee That I Would Someday Win Awards For Writing. Heavens, The Only Person During That Time Who Seemed To Think I Could Write Something Worth Publishing Was My Loyal Husband. But I Always Remembered The Professor From Graduate School Who Urged Me To Write And Who Recommended Me For That First Writing Assignment In 1964. When I Protested To Sara Little That I Didn't Want To Add Another Mediocre Writer To The World, She Gently Reminded Me That If I Didn't Dare Mediocrity, I Would Never Write Anything At All.

A Work That Intends To Be Art Must First Be Entertaining.

As Much Pleasure As Young People Get From Twittering And Texting, There Is No Way These Activities Will Nourish Their Minds And Spirits The Way Literature Can.

On Decoration Day, While Everyone Else In Town Was At The Cemetery Decorating The Graves Of Our Glorious War Dead, Willie Beaner And Me, Robert Burns Hewitt, Took Mabel Cramm's Bloomers And Run Them Up The Flagpole In Front Of The Town Hall. That Was The Beginning Of All My Troubles.