Andrew Clements
Andrew Clements
Andrew Clementsis an American writer of many children's books. His debut novel Frindle won annual book awards determined by the vote of U.S. schoolchildren in about twenty different U.S. states. In June 2015 it was named the Phoenix Award winner for 2016 as the best book that did not win a major award when it was published in 1996...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionChildren's Author
Date of Birth29 May 1949
CityCamden, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
Sometimes kids ask how I've been able to write so many books. The answer is simple: one word at a time. Which is another good lesson, I think. You don't have to do everything at once. You don't have to know how every story is going to end. You just have to take that next step, look for that next idea, write that next word.
I think the reason I'm a writer is because first, I was a reader. I loved to read. I read a lot of adventure stories and mystery books, and I have wonderful memories of my mom reading picture books aloud to me. I learned that words are powerful.
My sister called her pillow a pilgo. My brother called his pacifier his nimma. But I don't think I was much of a word generator myself.
The dictionary is like a time capsule of all of human thinking ever since words began to be written down. And exploring where words have come from can increase your understanding of the words themselves and expand your understanding of how to use the words, and all of this change happens in your thinking when you read the words.
There's so much made of the exceptional and the celebrity, the famous, and the wannabees.
Watch TV or something." That's what the note says. So I say to myself, Fine. But I think I'll do the "or something" part.
Darkness is only light's absence.
Because a real kiss, a kiss that two real people choose to give each other - it's something that can't be filmed or photographed or drawn, or even described with words. Because a kiss isn't what it looks like or how it feels. A real kiss happens down deep inside of two hearts at the same time. It's hidden away. A real kiss is invisible.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but don't three lefts make a right? Two wrongs don't make a right, but don't two negatives make a positive?
It is not good to have TOO MUCH of anything.
Dave couldn't remember the last time a grownup had apologized to him.
But fear doesn't need doors and windows. It works from the inside.
I almost tell him that I'd never be able to do something like that, just take out my instrument and begin playing on a street corner. But it feels to personal. Yes, I'm shy, but why bring it to his attention? I'm too shy to talk about how shy I am.
And I love Jane Austen's use of language too--the way she takes her time to develop a phrase and gives it room to grow, so that these clever, complex statements form slowly and then bloom in my mind. Beethoven does the same thing with his cadence and phrasing and structure. It's a fact: Jane Austen is musical. And so's Yeats. And Wordsworth. All the great writers are musical.