History is exciting because it's true.

Every kid has a story to tell!

Ages ago, when I published 'Amelia's Notebook,' I'd sent it to traditional publishers I'd been working with, but nobody knew what to do with it. Tricycle was this small publisher who didn't know any better, and they took a chance.

I loved playing with the mix of fantastical inventions and real ones. I hope kids will start logbooks to record their own creations.

Not only is writing more important than ever, but visual literacy is vital. We don't teach enough design, art, visual things. We have to recognize what we're seeing. It matters if you send someone a cluttered design. It matters more than ever.

Once I opened a book, I felt compelled to finish it. I was drawn into a world, and I had to know what would happen, how it would end.

Notebooks allow for all kinds of record-keeping, and I kept one myself as a kid. I was attracted to mixing up words and pictures freely, since that's how I think.

New York publishing is about, 'What's the next Harry Potter? What's the next Twilight?' When I've approached people, I've asked, 'What is the book you've been dying to do, but New York won't do?' I want the books that they think won't sell - because I think they will.

Amelia shows that it's not what happens in life that counts, but rather how you frame it, how you talk about it.

You write, hoping to write a good book; that's it.