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In some ways, getting published in children's literature is a little more open than publishing adult literature. It's less hinged on who you might know.

Children's books are often seen as the poor relation of literature. But children are just as demanding as adult readers, if not more so. I should know. I'm a children's writer myself.

When you write for children and young adults, you have much more affect and influence on them than when you write for adults. The books that get us through our childhood stay with us for life.

The distinction has blurred between young adult and adult books. Some of the teen books have become more sophisticated.

I'm not terribly conversant with children's literature in general. I tend to read books for adults, being an adult.

With few exceptions, the publishing industry has come to a consensus: if a book has a young protagonist, and if its worldview is primarily interested in the questions that crop up when coming of age, then it's a young adult novel.

I'm looking forward to writing more novels for young adults.

I think what makes good children's books is putting the same care and effort into it as if I was writing for adults. I don't write anything - put anything in my books - that I'd be embarrassed to put in an adult book.

I suspect that authors who start their careers writing for an adult audience - and who eventually produce a young adult novel or two - are more common than authors who begin by writing for young adults and who then gravitate toward composing something for an adult audience.

I've never read a young adult novel, though. I'm sure I would love it, but I've never read one.