There Is Cruelty In The

. . .only The Victims And Survivors Can Truly Comprehend The Awfulness Of That Time And Place; The Rest Of Us Live On The Other Side Of The Fence, Staring Through From Our Own Comfortable Place, Trying In Our Own Clumsy Ways To Make Sense Of It All.

War Today Is Such A More Visible Thing. We See It On Television, On Cnn. In 1914, War Was A Concept.

There's Things That Happen In A Person's Life That Are So Scorched In The Memory And Burned Into The Heart That There's No Forgetting Them.

I Don't Change The Language For Children Books. I Don't Make The Language Simpler. I Use Words That They Might Have To Look Up In The Dictionary. The Books Are Shorter, But There's Just Not That Much Difference Other Than That To Be Honest. And The Funny Thing Is, I Have Adult Writer Friends [to Whom I Would Say], "would You Think Of Writing A Children's Book?" And They Go, "no, God, I Wouldn't Know How." They're Quite Intimidated By The Concept Of It. And When I Say To Children's Books Writers, Would They Write An Adult Book, They Say No Because They Think They're Too Good For It.

Well You've Been Brought Here Against Your Will, Just Like I Have. If You Ask Me, We're All In The Same Boat. And It's Leaking.