Children S Authors

"If they want to be illustrators, there's no substitute for a very intensive training in art, and also the use of computers. There are adjunct jobs that are available in publishing that get your foot in the door, and there isn't a designer that doesn't have to use the computer these days. But they have to learn how to draw as well. I'm old-fashioned. I think there's no substitute for basic skills."

"I grew up always wanting to be an artist, and it was in high school when I started to really like writing. I was a junior in high school thinking about what I wanted to do with my life and I thought it would be great if I could find a job in which I could both draw and paint ... and write which was this new thing that I loved. And I thought children's picture books would be the perfect job for me. It was a great combination of those skills and that's when I decided that's what I wanted to do."

"I’ve had several teachers who inspired me. Most notable was, perhaps, an English teacher I had during my junior year of high school. All my life I’d been praised and encouraged as an artist. This particular teacher did this, but she also encouraged me as a writer, going so far as to say once, “I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw your name on a book one day.” The power of these words was enormous. I’ll never forget them. Or her."

"A staggering 50,000 M Devices were shipped to Russia: British aerial attacks using them began on 27 August 1919, targeting the village of Emtsa, 120 miles south of Archangel. Bolshevik soldiers were seen fleeing in panic as the green chemical gas drifted towards them. Those caught in the cloud vomited blood, then collapsed unconscious. The attacks continued throughout September on many Bolshevik-held villages: Chunova, Vikhtova, Pocha, Chorga, Tavoigor and Zapolki. But the weapons proved less effective than Churchill had hoped, partly because of the damp autumn weather. By September, the attacks were halted then stopped. Two weeks later the remaining weapons were dumped in the . They remain on the seabed to this day in 40 fathoms of water."

"The British were no strangers to the use of chemical weapons."

"The top secret "M Device", an exploding shell containing a highly toxic gas called diphenylaminechloroarsine. The man in charge of developing it, Major General Charles Foulkes, called it "the most effective chemical weapon ever devised". Trials at Porton suggested that it was indeed a terrible new weapon. Uncontrollable vomiting, coughing up blood and instant, crippling fatigue were the most common reactions. The overall head of chemical warfare production, Sir Keith Price, was convinced its use would lead to the rapid collapse of the Bolshevik regime. "If you got home only once with the gas you would find no more Bolshies this side of Vologda."The cabinet was hostile to the use of such weapons, much to Churchill's irritation. He also wanted to use M Devices against the rebellious tribes of northern India. "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes," he declared in one secret memorandum."

"Secrecy was paramount. Britain's imperial general staff knew there would be outrage if it became known that the government was intending to use its secret stockpile of chemical weapons. But Winston Churchill, then secretary of state for war, brushed aside their concerns. As a long-term advocate of , he was determined to use them against the ."

"Reality is ungraspable. For convenience we use a limited-reality consensus in which work can be done, transport arranged, and essential services provided. The real reality is something else—only the strangeness of it can be taken in and that's what interests me: the strangeness of human consciousness; the strangeness of life and death; the strangeness of what the living and the dead are to one another; and the strangeness of ideas ... that seem to have been with us from long before the stories of them happened. The real reality, the flickering of seen and unseen actualities, the moment under the moment, can't be put into words; the most that a writer can do—and this is only rarely achieved—is to write in such a way that the reader finds himself in a place where the unwordable happens off the page."

"Why do you buy [shoddy goods] if you think the quality is so poor?"

"[Inspector] Singh closed his eyes and contemplated the gloom within. Circles within circles. Would a child of one of these dead men – killed in a holy place – grow up with revenge on his mind like Tanvir Singh had done? It didn’t bear thinking about."

"That's Mao."

"“Text messaging?” “That is main way that trouble-makers are getting flash mobs together for riots,” explained Patel. Singh chewed on his bottom lip thoughtfully. Technology had a lot to answer for. ... It did beg the question though – how had the more tiresome elements of society begun riots before the era of mobile phones – carrier pigeons?"

"“Sounds like preparation for war,” remarked Singh, yet again forced to contemplate the difference between Singapore policing’s idea of a tough day at the office, an outbreak of jaywalking perhaps, and the Indian equivalent. “Sometimes it is exactly like war,” said Patel in a quiet voice and Singh had a sudden glimpse into the abyss."

"“Indian police not at all good at keeping secrets.” “The press doesn’t seem to know that it’s murder,” said Singh reassuringly."

"Singh returned to his reading material, a glossy brochure that folded like a particularly annoying map, for the products of Bharat Chemicals. ... A flowchart explained that the employee structure combined the best elements of East and West’ – surly American management and cheap Indian labour, concluded Singh."

"Having accidentally watched ten minutes of a head-waggling, hip-shaking, breast-jiggling extravaganza on television, the inspector wasn’t surprised that thespian qualities were not at a premium. It was disheartening, however, to think that it was skin colour that was of paramount importance instead."

"“Finger prints?” “Wiped.” Singh sighed. Was there a criminal out there who didn’t know to wipe his prints?"

"Singh stared down at the empty clear-plastic slots and felt a profound sense of loss. These pages would remain forever empty now. No happy family, no children. Was that a bit sexist? No Nobel Prize for Chemistry, he amended."

"Without money, terrorists were just angry young men with an axe to grind. With money, the metaphorical axe became real and sharp and terrifying. He knew that very well – had learnt it the hard way – from his murder investigation in Bali after the bombings there."

"If publicity was the lifeblood of terrorists, the week-long siege of the hotel had been a massive transfusion."

"“I thought you didn’t approve of my job.” “Different when it’s family.” “Most murder victims have families.” She nodded once. “So you better hurry up and find this killer instead of hiding here smoking cigarettes.”"

"“What are you trying to say?” “Well, she’s due to get married and she runs away from home…what else is one supposed to think?” “Are the Singapore police trained to leap to conclusions, Inspector?” Tanvir’s ironic remark was a little too close to the bone. Still, one did have to examine the obvious before indulging in colourful speculation. “Embellish your theory, Inspector,” said Tara Singh. His voice was as sharp as the knives with stiletto points that Singh sometimes found embedded in the chests of victims."

"Out of the corner of his eye, Singh noted that the younger brother looked scared. There were secrets within this family. But was there anything odd in that? All families had something to hide, a sin that loomed large in the household although trivial in the greater scheme of things. A quarrel between members, feuding factions, perhaps an affair. It didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the missing woman."

"In a few minutes, they were whizzing past small boys who had the latest cricket scores written on bits of cardboard. They held up the information for passing traffic and the drivers exclaimed at the news – Sachin Tendulkar had scored a fifty – and threw coins at them in thanks. So much for avoiding the result of the game, thought Singh. This system was more efficient than subscribing for updates on a mobile phone."

"“You see,” whispered Mrs. Singh triumphantly, “we just had to find someone trustworthy.” She continued darkly, “In India, you can only trust your own kind. Blood calls to blood.” One friendly Sikh and suddenly they were all part of the Sikh brotherhood."

"Sycophantic little tosser, thought Singh, protecting his inheritance with a bit of brown-nosing. He looked at Tara Singh. Weren’t these big-time industrialists supposed to be good judges of character? Surely he could see through the boy? And why was the brother reluctant to have Singh involved anyway? Didn’t he want to find his sister?"

"Singh was always impressed at his wife’s ability to draw large conclusions from infinestimal pieces of evidence. She’d fit right into the Singapore police murder squad."

"In the foreground, right on the waterfront, was a massive pastel yellow arch – the Gateway of India. “It was built to welcome King George V when he visited India,” explained his well-briefed, Google-friendly wife. “They didn’t think a bunch of flowers would do?” asked [Inspector] Singh. “Anyway, it was only completed twelve years after the visit.” Singh grinned. That was the sort of managerial incompetence that he found amusing."

"There had been encroachments by Pakistani troops over the line of control in Kashmir. Editorials solemnly urged the government to adopt a firm stance. Right, thought [Inspector] Singh. Two nuclear powers adopting a ‘firm’ stance was definitely the right way forward."

"Her life had all the ingredients of a Bollywood movie except the happy ending."

""He gives away a lot of money to charity and supports Sikh causes.” “Maybe we could persuade him that I’m a Sikh cause.”"

"Global warming was to blame according to scientists and the government had promised tough climate goals. Next to the article was another one, lauding the Tata Nano, the ‘one lakh’ car. No one seemed inclined to point out the contradiction between reducing global warming and sticking a bunch of cheap cars on the road ... There was something to be said for the ‘no news is good news’ approach of the Singapore dailies. Certainly, an ordinary day’s worth of news in the Straits Times, tucked in between the advertisements for supermarket chains, cheap holidays and miraculous slimming treatments, didn’t look quite like this."

"“Don’t know about police methods in the United States,” remarked Singh, “but where I come from a person last seen having an argument with someone who later turns up dead goes straight to the top of the list of suspects.”"

"Mrs. Singh finally hove into view. “About bloody time,” he muttered. “These fellows have been trying to take our passports, our bags, our trolley – they’d have walked off with me balanced on their heads if you’d taken any longer.” “Strong but not that strong,” remarked Mrs. Singh, leading the way to the taxi rank."

"Humanity was doomed, decided Singh, which made his job of hunting down individual murderers particularly pointless."

"In India, Inspector Singh, life is sometimes very cheap."

"He suspected they did it not just because of their voracious appetite for tropical hardwoods and the money that it brought in, but because of a visceral fear that someday they might have to acknowledge that they were wrong. Everything they had sought and bought had not brought them happiness, let alone contentment. [...] It was better to destroy the potential source of such unpalatable truths than have them live to witness the lives of quiet desperation of their tormentors."

"The inspector sighed, a gentle rolling sound. He should have insisted all those years ago that the matchmakers found him a wife with a fondness for cricket. On the other hand, Mrs. Singh was already a formidable creature – was placing a heavy willow bat in her hands really a good idea? Singh, chewing on his bottom lip, decided that he preferred a wife who could cook over one who could bat."

"Temples are places of worship, not war. We should never have let separatists hole up in our gurdwaras."

"A mob is more than the sum of individuals. It is more like a single creature with many arms and legs, hydra-headed but working with one idea."

"But these quiet people, in their animal skin clothes with their diet of sago, were not to be left alone to wander through the lush jungles, living off the land, leaving no mark when they moved on, teaching their children the secrets of the forest. The greed of others could not co-exist with the selflessness of the Penan with their gentle humour and generous hearts."

"The apartment building was tall and modern and would not have looked out of place in Singapore. In Singh’s view, it was extremely dull. “I thought that these rich Indians lived in mansions with one lot of stairs going up and another coming down and dancing girls everywhere?” “You watch too much TV.”"

"The act of speaking, the release from silence, invariably meant that the prisoner would say too much, give something away, let slip an honest truth in the midst of the self-justification. Inspector Singh, like a fine piano-tuner, could listen to these verbal outpourings and pick up those hints of expression or emotion that were off-key and those that rang true. And so he waited for Jasper Lee to open his mouth, and a door to the truth, at the same time."

"The gods were fighting over her children but she could not seek the help of any of them. And she had so much choice. She had grown up a Buddhist, her ex-husband was alleged a Moslem when he died, her own sister was a Christian - so many options for salvation. [...] Chelsea would have settled for solace through prayer. But she did not believe that there was an invisible hand behind the farce that was her life's play. At the very least she did not believe in a benevolent God. [...] Surely it was better to lay the blame for the machinations of fate at the door of chance?"

"“Eighty per cent of doctors in the United States are of Indian origin,” snapped Mrs. Singh, looking up from the computer for a moment to ensure that he was paying attention. “That can’t possibly be right,” protested Singh. “It says so right here,” said his wife, pointing a bony finger at the screen and basking in the blue light like an acolyte before a high priest. “Not everything you read on the Internet is true,” muttered Singh, addressing his remark to the skinny back in the flamboyant pink caftan."

"Rupert did not understand why the parasites in cities did not understand the most fundamental tenet of nature - that a parasite eventually kills its host. Did these people not know that if they continued to feed and spread and grow, with the tendrils of their greed wrapping themselves around their host, the day would come when it could no longer sustain them and when it died they would too?"

"He would avoid her relatives in the same way he’d always done – by sitting irascibly in a corner and allowing their waves of curiosity to wash over him."

"Sometimes, if you want to protect something you care about, you have to take extreme steps."

"Singaporeans were always adding to the list of reasons each one kept to hand, in case they met a Malaysian, of why it was so much better on the island than the peninsula. They ranged from law and order to cleanliness, from clean government to good schools, and always ended on the strength of the Singaporean economy. But in the end, the Malaysian would nod, as if to agree on the points made — and shrug to indicate that they wouldn't trade passports, not really."

"Now he was in a holding pen with various members of the Kuala Lumpur criminal fraternity and they scared him [...] They ranged from a Chinese gang member, whose dragon tattoo foraged up his arm and curled around his neck, to a large, [sic] Indian man with a jet-black moustache and pocked-marked face, brooding in a corner. The majority of his cellmates appeared from their accents to be Indonesians, part of the large contingent of illegal immigrants in Malaysia. [...] At least, he thought, the government should be proud that their efforts to integrate the various races in Malaysia into a cohesive society were bearing such fruit. It was a very multi-racial group that was penned in together."