PETER LERANGIS

I love to travel. During normal workdays, sometimes it feels like I have to bludgeon ideas out of my soul - but when I'm traveling, relaxed and unpressured, the ideas just spill out.

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

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.

I'm a children's book writer, and my wife is a musician. We've raised a family on income from songs, performances and books.

SOPA has been described as hitting a carpet tack with a sledgehammer. But technology was a sledgehammer to the music industry, one that allowed digital distributors like Apple to grow rich.

On scores of sites, users can upload illegal files of my books. As per 1998's toothless Digital Millennium Copyright Act, I bear the burden of discovering and reporting each theft.

I have an oval-shaped scar on the knuckle of my right index finger from crashing my hand through a light fixture while practicing Elvis Presley moves in college.

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

Big Tech's nonchalance about copyright violation tramples over people like my wife and me, who strive to make a living in the great tradition of the creative realm.

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.

Dan was heading for the blue car in the driveway. He tossed Amy the car keys. "Don't drive like you! Make it fast!

Who needs bread crumbs," Dan replied, "when you have GPS?

It's a token for the arcade games at Laser Sport Time!" Dan hissed. "Uncle Alistair doesn't think so," Amy murmured. "He's a numismatist." "He takes his clothes off in public?" Dan said.

In a whirlwind, Reagan quickly knocked off fifty more push-ups, flipped, and did thirty crunches, then turned and landed a kick that dented the metal door. "I'm feeling sick, too, and look at me. What if Babe Ruth had said 'Time to Rest'? Or Michael Phelps? Or Neil Armstrong? Come on, guys–what are we?" "Hungry," Natalie said. "Sleepy," Alistair added. "Grumpy," Fiske said. "Sneezy," Phoenix piped up. "Shot," Nellie said.

Amy Cahill didn't believe in omens. But black snow was falling, he earth was rumbling beneath her feet, her brother was meowing, and her uncle Alistair was prancing on the beach in pink pajamas. She had to admit, the signs were not promising.

Hey, Amy, did you ever want to, like, get on the conveyor belt and see what happened? Like,'Hey don't mind me, I'm just hanging with cargo'?

You should climb around inside my brain, Dan. It's like this dark room surrounded by quicksand." "I know what you mean," her brother said quietly. "I hate being in my brain sometimes. I have to get out." "What do you do?" Amy asked. Dan shrugged "I go to other places. My toes. My shoulders. But mostly here." He tapped his chest and immediately reddened. "I know. It's stupid." "Not really," Amy said. "I wish I could do that, too.

How do you know, Dan? You were so young when they died. Do you really remember them?" "Not in my mind," Dan replied, gazing at the passing scenery. "But everyplace else.

Cheyenne snatched back her phone. "Someone took her brave pills today." "And washed them down with stupid juice," Casper added, cocking his gun.

When the guy turned around, Amy began stuttering. Silently. It was a feat only Amy could manage, and only Dan could notice. And it only happened in front of boys who looked like this one. He had brown hair and caramel-colored eyes, like Dan's friend Nick Santos, who made all the sixth-grade girls turn into blithering idiots when he looked their way--in fact, would even say Watch, lean make them turn into blithering idiots, and then he'd do it. Only older. "He. Is. Hot," Nellie said under her breath. "You too?" Dan hissed.

Once apon a time, Ian's dark, dreamy eyes had made her melt inside. The angle of his head, the wrinkle in the left corner of his lip—they'd obsessed her. And he'd been obsessed right back. Now all Amy wanted to do was throw her shoe at the screen.

I g-g-guess...I'm dead?" she heard her own voice call out, strangely high-pitched and thin. For a long time, she heard nothing else. And then: "Hi, Dead. I'm Dan.

Dan watched in awe. "I didn't know you talk Turkey." "I speak Turkish.

Trust is a fragile thing - difficult to build, easy to break. It cannot be bargained for. Only if it is freely given it can be expected in return

Rock star do not jump!" The launch was cutting sharply, its skipper calling out a phrase that bore no relationship to the English language as Amy knew it. "Rock star in a hurry!" Nellie replied, one foot on the boat's gunwale.