Matthew Tobin Anderson

One of the series I like is D.M. Cornish's 'Monster Blood Tattoo,' in which he creates a whole language. Kids who are reading that are building a language in their heads. There's no real cognitive difference. I think kids are excited by language, and they're not always given credit for that.

I think kids are excited by language, and they're not always given credit for that.

If we're going to ask our kids at age 18 to go off to war and die for their country, I don't see any problem with asking them at age 16 to think about what that might mean.

It's insulting to believe that teens should have a different kind of book than an adult should.

I feel like it's important every once in a while to estrange ourselves from the familiar to remind ourselves of the potentialities of people, how many different ways there are of being.

Teens are not like the weird, dumb dwarves you have around your house. They are actually you when you were younger. Why not write a book which is as sophisticated as a book for an adult, but is about the concerns that teenagers actually have?

Teens are not like the weird, dumb dwarves you have around your house. They are actually you when you were younger.

We love fantasy novels in which the characters think that they're peasants but turn out to be princes and kings.

I completely love music. I used to be the music critic at 'The Improper Bostonian.' It's just something I've always loved very deeply.

Certain elements of teen life that, 10 years ago, were very important to me still, are becoming less so as I get older. I mean, I've kinda gotten over, I guess I'm saying, the fact that I had trouble getting a date for the prom.

I feel like it's hard to get into historical novels where you know what the story is far too well.

I've always enjoyed that kind of thing - thinking about the production of narrative and why it is that when we read a novel, we don't notice the fact that someone who might be very close-mouthed or tight-lipped is perfectly willing to tell us a story in 600 or 700 pages.