Yes, I always imagined living in other places.

I love to read, I love to watch movies, and I love to be with my children.

I just did a picture book called The Wildest Brother on Earth, and you will find both of my children in there.

I have two Iceland horses, a very hairy dog called Looney, and a guinea pig.

Oh, I think every author is inspired by all of the books that she reads.

A library book, I imagine, is a happy book.

And I plan to write a sequel to Dragon Rider.

My son always says I like very weird music.

I always thought it hadn’t influenced me very much, but I heard from many people from England that many motives from German fairytales are to be found in my books.

Second, there are so many magical places in books that you can’t go to, like Hogwarts and Middle Earth, so I wanted to set a story in a place where children can actually go.

And my father always took me to the library. We were both book addicts.

I live in Hamburg; that’s in the north. And I live on the outskirts of town. It looks like countryside.

Everything gets to me. I’m very sentimental.

Yes, I always imagined living in other places.

Every reader knows about the feeling that characters in books seem more real than real people.

I wish I had more time to visit schools.

Every German child learns to speak English in school.

I love to read aloud.

My daughter, Anna, is almost 15, and my son, Ben, is almost 10.

If I was a book, I would like to be a library book, so I would be taken home by all different sorts of kids.

There are not so many mythical creatures from Inkheart.

I always wanted to ride a dragon myself, so I decided to do this for a year in my imagination.

I like to visit my horse, have a walk with my dog.

And I always read the English translation and always have conversations with my translator, for example about the names. I always have to approve it.

I will try to write books until I drop dead.

I like a composer called Henry Purcell, and I love to listen to Neil Young.

My grandmother told stories; she was very good at that.

They are shooting The Thief Lord in Venice at the moment.

I don’t like to eat the same dish every day, so I read very different things.