Not much goes on in the mind of a squirrel.Huge portions of what is loosely termed "the squirrel brain" are given over to one thought: food.The average squirrel cogitation goes something like this: I wonder what there is to eat.

I always wanted to be a character, when I worked at Disney, but I wasn't short enough for certain characters and I wasn't tall enough for others. I wanted to be a chipmunk; I think 4'10" was the cutoff.

It's a book [Bink & Gollie] about shortness and tallness, so I think it's appropriate to discuss the virtues of shortness.

It distresses me that parents insist that their children read or make them read. I think the best way for children to treasure reading is for them to see the adults in their lives reading for their own pleasure.

I think of myself as an enormously lucky person.

I like to think of myself as a storyteller,

I think Tony Fucile, who did the illustrations [for Bink & Gollie], is an absolute genius. I've never met him.

I think we sent Tony Fucile pictures of ourselves, photos from like when we were seven years old. That's what he worked from. He captured exactly what we looked like. I'd love to do another one with Alison, not just for the joy of writing, but also for the joy of watching Tony bring it to life with his illustrations. I'm hoping at BEA, or ALA, I'll get to meet Tony and shake his hand and thank him.

Did you think that rats do not have hearts? Wrong. All living things have a heart. And the heart of any living thing can be broken.