My books are shelved in different places, depending on the bookstore. Sometimes they can be found in the Mystery section, sometimes in the Humor department, and occasionally even in the Literature aisle, which is somewhat astounding.
It is a good idea to know which publishers publish which stories. For example, there is no sense in sending a picture book text to a publisher who does not publish picture books.
I think of my books as mainstream and that's were most people who read them look for them in book stores.
All books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time.
Boys do not evaluate a book. They divide books into categories. There are sexy books, war books, westerns, travel books, science fiction. A boy will accept anything from a section he knows rather than risk another sort. He has to have the label on the bottle to know it is the mixture as before.
I would say that most of my books are contemporary realistic fiction... a couple, maybe three, fall into the 'historic fiction' category. Science fiction is not a favorite genre of mine, though I have greatly enjoyed some of the work of Ursula LeGuin. I haven't read much science fiction so I don't know other sci-fi authors.
As consumers, we are faced with hundreds of choices - and when it comes to books, thousands of choices.
As far as this categorization of books, the way I see it is there are really a hundred-odd categories of books plus one, and on the top shelf at home, I've got the books I love, my favorite books, and that's the type of book that I want to write.
I've always wanted to write an early reader. When I wrote my first novel, my goal was to make it an early reader, but it grew beyond the category.
That literary-popular distinction is, in my view, vastly overstated. At the far poles there are clearly books that are purely commercial and purely literary, written for audiences that want to see the same thing enacted over and over and over again. But the middle is where most people read and most people write.
Books are divided into two classes, the books of the hour and the books of all time.
I devour books. But for the longest time, I refused to pay attention to genre or labels.
When you realize my best selling books are 'Owl Moon,' the 'How Do Dinosaur' books, and 'Devil's Arithmetic,' how can the public make sense of that! I have fans who think I only write picture books or only write SF and fantasy. I have fanatics of my poetry and are stunned to find out I write prose, too!
I write entertainment. There are some books you read but don't inhale. There are books that will change your life.
