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I loved Madeleine L'Engle as a child - 'A Wrinkle in Time.'

Our censorship has sort of gotten a little too far. Too much censorship is just as bad as having none at all. Children need to be exposed to things, because if they don't see it, eventually, it's not like it's not going to happen, but it's just that there needs to be a balance.

I think that children's books should be censored not for references to sex but for references to diseases. I mean, who didn't think after reading 'Madeline' that they were going to get appendicitis?

The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.

Kids are no longer interested in reading comic books; they've got television and the electronic games that they can bury themselves in like ostriches. They don't have to pay attention to what's going on in the world around them.

I don't for one second think about the possibility of censorship when I am writing a new book. I know I am a person who cares about kids and who cares about truth and I am guided by my own instincts, and trust them.

Young readers have to be entertained. No child reads fiction because they think it's going to make them a better person.

Many writers were picked on as children. Why? Because they were weird from the get-go. They were often to be found at the back of the class smelling erasers, or talking to caterpillars, or walking down the street with an encyclopedia balanced on their head.

If you go back to, say, the Brothers Grimm or Roald Dahl, you see so much darkness in children's material.

Children's authors don't talk down or patronise their younger readers.