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Richard Peck XX ![]() |
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Graduation Photo |
Today |
"I believe I have one theme in all of my books and I want to get it across to all my readers every time and that is this: You will never begin to grow up until you declare your independence from your peers." |
"I get ideas for my stories in schools where I go to visit. Some kid, somewhere, always tells me what my next book is going to be about. And some teacher tells me about something that is going on with young people in that community that nobody else knows and that no parent would dare to know." |
"For inspiration, I now travel about sixty thousand miles a year, on the trail of the young. Now, I never start a novel until some young reader, somewhere, gives me the necessary nudge." |
"I want to write novels that ask honest questions about serious issues. A novel is never an answer; it's always a question." |
"What started me on a career as a writer? A mother who read to me before I could read, and teachers who never put a grade on a rough draft." |
"On a good day, a very good day, I receive a letter from some young reader in a town where I've never been, asking, 'How do you know me? Do you live around here?' I try to." |
"Why do I feel it is important to impress upon young readers their right to freedom of speech? Because so many of them don't know that they have freedom of speech. I'm not sure their peer group leaders give them freedom of speech. And I do know that the school library of the school they attend is under heavier attack than the public library just down the street. I think they are in the thick of the battle and many of them are not aware of it." |
"My advice for children who want to write is, you can start right now." |
"I caught my first glimpses of the world and the future in books. Here in some other century I hope young readers still do." |
A Novel |
of Blossom Culp |
Dream Machine |