Being a father can 'unreason' your worldview, or at least make it very flexible, and that can create all sorts of fun and insights. It's sad that children's open-eyed wonder and sense of play begin to fade as they approach adolescence. One grand function of fathering is to keep the fading to a minimum.

Kristina, my wife, and I thought about this one day when the kids were, of course, watching television. And we took a big blanket and put it in the backyard and said, 'Let's go out on our back and look at the sky and call it sky television.' We saw all kinds of things.

I think I would have written more books if I'd had fewer kids or had them earlier, but I think the books in general would have had a little less spark to them.

I believe there's a secret chemical that's turned loose when you have kids that says you've got to survive, you've got to be strong. That keeps you on your toes, besides all kinds of other things, when you have three little ones running around.

When I was nine years old, my family lost our home, and the six of us moved into my grandparents' converted garage.

My parents met at Fort Riley, Kan., during World War II. My father was an Army civilian; he had been trampled by a horse in his youth and couldn't enlist. My mother was studying to be a nurse and, when war broke out, joined the Women's Army Corps without even telling her parents.

Mothers, stay close to your daughters. Earn and deserve their love and respect. Be united with their father in the rearing of your children. Do nothing in your life to cause your daughters to stumble because of your example.

I was born in Nizhny Novgorod to a very poor family and unfortunately my father and mother separated when I was very little.