growing up

One of the greatest, unplanned consequences of my expansion from picturebooks to novels has been that my books have kept pace with my readership. Once, a woman said to me, "My kids have grown up with your books," and it struck me as perhaps the best moment in my career.

Because it is, actually, true. Children that I signed picturebooks who now find them too young are now reading my novels, as if I made them specifically FOR them. And who is to say that I did not? Maybe the creative muse sometimes does take orders.

Most recently, I visited Charlotte, NC for the Novello Festival of Reading. It was great fun, but one of the highlights was catching up with a family that I had met during my first visit at Novello--some 4 years ago. The toddler whom I had signed picturebooks for was now a smart and pretty girl who reads my novels!


And at my booksigning at the Toadstool Bookshop I met up with some other "old" fans.

They were so old, that one mother sent me a photo of the first time we met.

Isn't that neat? I guess I should start thinking about writing teenage YA. I think I could write about vampires............just joking!