With the '39 Clues,' we were making history jump out of the page for the readers, so they don't know they're learning. The kids can't put the books down - it's so exciting.

When I set up my Web site, I made a guestbook so kids can write to me there, and that's become one of the most popular parts of the site.

I can't contain how enthusiastic I am about working on books for kids.

I like helping other writers who don't know what to do or where to go in New York.

Divorce is, of course, difficult for a child. I didn't go through it as my parents stayed together, but I have a lot of friends who did.

My mother and her five sisters have always been living examples of the great love that can exist among sisters - and in a large family.

I'd seen all the great entertainers by the time I was 14 or 15. My mother was artistic. My father was a bookmaker, so he had access to all those nightclubs, and he was smitten by certain artists, and we would go see them. We'd see comics like Sid Caesar and Milton Berle - those kind of artists - many of whom I worked with later in my life.

One of my earliest memories was of seeing horse-drawn buggies with little Amish children peering out at me from the back, their legs dangling as they jabbered in Pennsylvania Dutch, sometimes pointing and giggling at my family following slowly behind them in our car.