How does one craft happiness out of something as important, as complicated, as unrepeatable and as easily damaged as life?
I have spent a great deal of my time defending my work against those who see it as too complicated, too old in approach, too bleak to qualify as children's literature. This has been the bane of my life.
I think there is something in my books that says these are people doing their best under difficult circumstances - sometimes they do wrong things and make mistakes, but who doesn't? And who wants to read about somebody who never does?
