If you want to communicate with the American public, the literature tells you you've got to be talking at about a sixth-grade, seventh-grade level.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
You have to be literate in today's world. We're not going to get away with not teaching boys to read.
I enjoy writing for third and fourth graders most of all.
If a parent wants to talk about slavery or wants to talk about countries where bombs go off, they need to have a way - a setting - to have that conversation. And there are wonderful books out there for those kinds of conversations.
I ought to at least be able to read literature in French. I went to an enlightened grade school that started us on French in fifth grade, which meant that by the time I graduated high school I had been at it for eight years.
Instead of trying to come up and pontificate on what literature is, you need to talk with children, to teachers, and make sure they get poetry in the curriculum early.
After I arrived in Mountain View, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, I entered sixth grade and quickly grew to love my new home, family and culture. I discovered a passion for language, though it was hard to learn the difference between formal English and American slang.
In general, I write for ages 12 and up - although I've received emails from readers between the ages of seven and seventy. My books are science fiction.
If children are studying the 20th century, I'm in their text books.
I'm not terribly conversant with children's literature in general. I tend to read books for adults, being an adult.
In the education of the American people, I am Recess.