Quotes from Jon Scieszka

Be a good reading role model. Show kids what you like to read, what you don't like to read, how you choose what you read. Let them see you reading.

I believe that all blogs should have at least one set of rhyming words. Just because. Does. Fuzz. Was.

I taught elementary school and painted apartments for ten years. Now I write full-time and never have to change a thing I write. Every book comes to me in a flash of inspiration and takes me about two seconds to finish. The longer books, like the 'Time Warp Trio' novels, take a little longer to write - more like four seconds.

I'm not sure what to call 'Lego Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary.' Nonfiction? Movie/toy fiction? But it is any Lego/'Star Wars' kid's dream. Call it spectacular.

When I was one day old, I learned how to read. When I was two days old, I started to write. By the time I was three, I had finished 212 short stories, 38 novels, 730 poems, and one very funny limerick, all before breakfast.

Expand the definition of 'reading' to include non-fiction, humor, graphic novels, magazines, action adventure, and, yes, even websites. It's the pleasure of reading that counts; the focus will naturally broaden. A boy won't read shark books forever.

Avoid demonizing television, computer games, and new technologies. Electronic media may compete for kids' attention, but we're not going to get kids reading by badmouthing other entertainment. Admit that TV and games can do things books can't.

I am honored to have served as our great nation's first National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. I will continue to serve as Ambassador Emeritus. And I will make good on my Ambassadorial promise to my wife to stop playing the 'Fanfare' every time I walk into or out of a room.

If the day gets really bad, I can always pull out fan mail. Who else gets mail where kids write to you and say, 'Dear Mr. Scieszka, we were supposed to write to our favorite author, but Roald Dahl is dead. So I'm writing to you.'

'Just looking at pictures' used to be considered cheating. No longer. The graphic novel is booming. Comics, heavily illustrated texts, books with no words are now accepted as reading.

I remember telling my second-graders the basic 'Metamorphosis' story, saying, like, 'What about - what if a guy woke up one morning and he was a bug? Wouldn't that be weird?' And they loved that. And I think that was the trigger that made me think, like, 'Oh man, here's my audience. They're just a lot shorter than I ever thought they might be.'

I think every parent knows that, like, boys and girls are different. And we just don't take that into account in schools on those things like required reading lists. 'Cause that was my experience, say, with my son, who had to read 'Little House on the Prairie' when he was in third grade.

I'm just trying to get kids motivated to be readers by connecting them with a book they like.

For a lot of kids, reading is not magical. It's really hard work.

I always loved strange stories like the Dr. Seuss stuff. 'Go, Dog. Go!' was one of my favorite stories - it still is. It's just such a bizarre yet true book. And I did well reading and writing as a kid throughout school. I think early on that's what made me realize what an advantage that is.

I always tried to really motivate kids by getting them excited about stuff – and even being a little mysterious about it, just saying, "I don't know. We got this stuff. We have to figure it out. It's up to you guys," and then lay something on them. And I always found that really piqued their interest better than lecturing them.

Lane and I got turned down in a lot of places because people thought the manuscript of The Three Little Pigs was too sophisticated. That became a curse word—the 'S' word… People don't give kids enough credit for knowing the fairy tales and being able to get what parody is.

Your brain is doing some great work when it's laughing.

And everyone lived happily, thought maybe not completely honestly, ever after. The End.

My face felt like it had just been rammed into a brick wall . . . because it had.

Pepy was six feet tall, with shoulders

Hang on, the cats are demanding their second breakfast. One second.

I'll explain that in a moment)

picnic table.