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Submitting to children's publishers

6 December 2010

'One said: "You can't write a book for children in the first person, they don't understand it." I knew that was rubbish. Another said: "Either have lovely pictures and keep the text minimal, or keep the text and have simple drawings." They all seemed to agree that I shouldn't have the text interrupting the pictures, as I do. But I thought, no: I'd rather it never got published than make radical changes. So I sat on it for a long time. That was very hard: I knew it was the best thing I'd ever done, and I thought: if no-one wants this, I don't know what I can do.'

Lauren Child, on looking for a publisher for her bestseller Clarice Bean, in the Guardian