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Life isn't so complicated for children. They have more time to think about the really important things. That's why I occasionally moralise in my children's books in a way I wouldn't dare when writing for adults.

I write books that seem more suitable for children, and that's OK with me. They are a better audience and tougher critics. Kids tell you what they think, not what they think they should think.

Back when I taught middle school and wrote adult mysteries, my students often asked me why I wasn't writing for kids. I never had a good answer for them. It took me a long time to realize they were right.

I never thought I was writing for kids at all. It really shocked and unsettled me to hear kids were buying the books. If I'd known I was writing for kids, I might actually have spelt things out a bit more, and that would probably have killed the appeal.

One of the biggest challenges of writing for middle-grade or even young-adult readers is that I don't want to have too much violence in it - which really limits what you can do. It's important that they're not just bloodbaths or glorifying violence. I always try to show that a person who dies leaves a hole. There's grief in my books.

I really love middle-grade. Middle-grade books have a little more of a magical, light-hearted feel. You can be a little bit more quirky, you can have a little more humor. It doesn't get so dark and deep.

For me, writing for kids is harder because they're a more discriminating audience. While adults might stay with you, if you lose your pacing or if you have pages of extraneous description, a kid's not going to do that. They will drop the book.

I want kids to think that reading can be just as much fun and more so than TV or video games or whatever else they do. I think any other kind of message or morals that I might teach is secondary to first just enjoying a book.