I wrote a few children's books... not on purpose.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I've written 16 children's books and five unpublished novels. Some of the latter were breathtakingly bad.
For 10 or 11 years, I had my kids, I wrote four or five books, and I was working all the damn time.
I started writing books for children because I could illustrate them myself and because, in my innocence, I thought they'd be easier.
I became a children's author by accident.
Then one day I thought it would be wonderful to make a whole book, to make my text and my drawings together, and that's how I started doing children's books.
I never wrote my books especially for children.
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.
I read a whole lot as a child, and, of course, I still read children's books.
I did have a child, and I was reading a lot of picture books to her, but at the same time writing a children's book was something that I'd been wanting to do for many years, pretty much since the start of my career.
I have written, probably, more books for children than any other writer, from story-books to plays, and can claim to know more about interesting children than most.