"Kids need all kinds of books. They need to be held and transported and understood and entertained, sometimes all at once. They need stories of all kinds."

From Anne Ursu's keynote speech at The Loft's 2014 Children’s and Young Adult Literature Conference:

This is the age where the world gets a little bigger every day, when your mind is still taking in everything it can, when adults stop shielding the hard things from you. Books are a small place to explore a big world. They are personal—for the first time, they are yours—and they are profound. They reflect and assure, they project and excite. And kids love them for it. They love them with their whole being.