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" I think children love reading, and they will make time for it if we put the right books into their hands. And I hope I get the chance to keep being one of the people that writes them. "
Rick Riordan
Reading
Time
Love
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" It's not easy. I got lots of rejections when I first started out. If you want to write, you have to believe in yourself and not give up. You have to do your best to practice and get better. "
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" Every child is different. I think it's important that we don't have maybe just one or two books that we're recommending to all children - but rather we cater the books to fit each individual child. "
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" We tend to think of divorced or complicated families as a modern invention, and that is not at all true. You only have to read the Greek myths to see broken homes, widows, divorce, stepchildren, children trying to get along with new parents. "
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" I get letters from college kids who have read Percy Jackson when they were younger who tell me, 'I just passed my Classics exam.' The books are accurate enough that they can serve as a gateway to Homer and Virgil. "
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" It's wonderful being an author and having so many kids enjoying my books. That's always been my dream job, and I feel very lucky to be able to do it. "
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" I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the level of success I've had. I was just writing stories for my own sons. "
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" It is true that I once refused to eat haggis in Scotland and this did not sit well with the local population. "
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" I think anytime you're writing to the middle grades, you're writing to young readers who are trapped in a number of ways between two worlds: between childhood and adulthood, between their friends and their parents. "
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" I love Norse mythology - Thor and Odin and Loki - amazing characters. "
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Characters
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" I like to have a simple workplace. "
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Simple
Like
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" I have to be careful. My readers are very detail-oriented, and if I make a mistake they'll call me on it. "
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Careful
Be Careful
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" My goal in the classroom was always to make sure they were having so much fun that they didn't realize they were learning. "
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Realize
Learning
Classroom
" For me, writing for kids is harder because they're a more discriminating audience. While adults might stay with you, if you lose your pacing or if you have pages of extraneous description, a kid's not going to do that. They will drop the book. "
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Me
Lose
Book
" I come to writing the same way I come to teaching, which is that my goal is always to create life-long readers. "
Rick Riordan
Create
Writing
Same
" I've always liked the idea that writing is a form of travel. And I started my writing career as a mystery novelist for adults. "
Rick Riordan
Career
Always
Writing
" It's always hard to wrap up a series. The longer I spend with the characters, the more they become like friends. "
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Friends
Become
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" I think that kids have a greater capacity for processing things than we give them credit for. "
Rick Riordan
Credit
Think
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" I like both Greek and Egyptian. More Greek stories have survived, so we know more about them. They've always been my favorite. On the other hand, I like the Egyptian stories because they're not as commonly known and they have an exotic flavour. "
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More
Always
Hand
" The images from the book you make in your head are always going to be the best images. "
Rick Riordan
Going
You
Head
" Back when I taught middle school and wrote adult mysteries, my students often asked me why I wasn't writing for kids. I never had a good answer for them. It took me a long time to realize they were right. "
Rick Riordan
Writing
Time
School
" I go back and research, say, every reference to the Gorgons, and I find what the classical writers said about them and it's so much richer than you might get in an average Greek mythology text. I feel like an archaeologist - I'm dusting off these things that people have not seen for thousands of years and bringing them into the modern world. "
Rick Riordan
People
Research
Say
" It seems like just yesterday my son was hiding under the table to avoid reading. Now, he's writing books longer than mine! "
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Son
Writing
Yesterday
" The Met is such a powerful place for me because it's a natural connection between the ancient world and the modern world. And when you're dealing with ancient mythology, trying to put a modern spin on it, you really can't do much better than to call on the Met. "
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World
You
Powerful
" The deeper I go into mythology, the more I find. I originally did five 'Percy Jackson' books. I thought that would cover Greek mythology and I couldn't have been more wrong. It's ever-expanding. "
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More
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" All of my characters tend to be montages of different people I've met: little bits and pieces of their personalities put together. "
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" When I was young, my favorite picture book was 'Fletcher and Zenobia,' written by Edward Gorey and illustrated by Victoria Chess. It's long out of print now, but its mix of macabre humor and 1960s psychedelia made it a perfect children's book for the times. "
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" I can't actually wrap my mind around it easily - I can't really visualize what 2 million books looks like... So I try to keep it real for myself by focusing on individual anecdotes of how my books have helped kids learn to love reading. "
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Learn
Love
" Kids are the audience I know best. "
Rick Riordan
Know
Best
Kids
" I don't teach anymore, but I can still clearly see fifth period after lunch - that's a real tough time to teach. And I tried to imagine writing a story that would appeal to those kids - even when they're tired, even when they're bouncing off the walls. "
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Writing
Tough
Tired
" I've been reading Greek mythology since I was a kid. I also taught it when I was a sixth grade teacher, so I knew a lot of mythological monsters already. Sometimes I still use books and Web sites to research, though. Every time I research Greek mythology, I learn something new! "
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Time
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