Strange questions are the more interesting ones. Children by and large don't try to trip you up... they want to find out how you do this funny thing that you do... if they've loved a story they love to know how it started.
Interpretation
Curiosity is essential for learning, especially in children who seek to understand the world around them.
This quote highlights the importance of curiosity and questioning in the learning process, particularly among children. Unlike adults who may ask questions to challenge or undermine, children are naturally inclined to explore and understand the mechanisms behind stories and events, demonstrating a pure desire to learn and connect with the world.
In practice
In a classroom setting, a teacher might use this quote to encourage students to ask more questions.
There is the myth that writing books for children is easier than writing books for grownups, whereas we know that truly great books for children are works of genius, whether it's 'Alice in Wonderland' or the 'Gruffalo' or 'Northern Lights.' When it's a great book, it's a great book, whether it's for children or not.
Animals are sentient, intelligent, perceptive, funny and entertaining. We owe them a duty of care as we do to children.
Write because you love it and not because it is something that you think you should do. Always write about something or somebody you know about - something that you feel deeply and passionately about. Never try and force it.
It is really important that focusing on things such as spelling, punctuation, grammar and handwriting doesn't inhibit the creative flow. When I was at school there was a huge focus on copying and testing and it put me off words and stories for years.
The most important thing is to live an interesting life. Keep your eyes, ears and heart open. Talk to people and visit interesting places, and don't forget to ask questions. To be a writer you need to drink in the world around you so it's always there in your head.
We feel strongly that the spirit characteristic of America at its noblest, above all the pursuit of higher learning, cannot admit of any conditions as to personnel other than those designed to promote the objects for which this institution is established, and particularly with no regard whatever to accidents of race, creed, or sex.
I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.
It is through hearing stories about wicked stepmothers, lost children, good but misguided kings, wolves that suckle twin boys, youngest sons who receive no inheritance but must make their own way in the world, and eldest sons who waste their inheritance on riotous living and go into exile to live with the swine, that children learn or mislearn both what a child and what a parent is, what the cast of characters may be in the drama into which they have been born and what the ways of the world are.
I love writing for young people. It's the literature that was most important to me, the stories that shaped me and informed my own journey as a writer.
Human intelligence is richer and more dynamic than we have been led to believe by formal academic education.
Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.