James Patterson, dubbed "the man who can't miss" by Time magazine:

• Holds the New York Times bestsellers list record* with 39 New York Times bestselling titles overall.
• s responsible for one out of every fifteen hardcover novels sold in 2007.

In 2007, an estimated 16 million James Patterson books were sold in the United States alone–more than John Grisham and Stephen King sold, combined, and more books than there are people subscribing to satellite radio. Is the "most borrowed" author in the UK! Patterson's popularity grows in the United Kingdom, where his books were checked out over 1.5 million times in 12 months. This, in an otherwise declining book borrowing market.

Noga Applebaum caught up with James Patterson at the London Book Fair earlier in the year.

You said on your website that when you gave your son the manuscript of Daniel-X he said “Dad, you finally got it right.” What is it about this series that you feel particularly appeals to young readers?

 First of all, the books are very fast paced, but I think what’s a little magical about the Daniel X series is that it’s about the power of the imagination. You have all these heroes, this one is stronger and this one is faster and so on, but Daniel is different. He is an alien hunter, for a good reason, because an alien killed his parents. Early in the book he’s in Portland Oregon, he’s living by himself in a house as a kid. The neighbours feel this is strange – he clearly has no parents, he’s out all night, so they call the police. The police come to the house and Daniel says ‘you got it all wrong, come in, I’ll get my parents’ and he does. They sit around, the parents talk to the police and the police leave, and then Daniel ‘disappears’ his parents. He solved a problem by creating parents, and he solves problems right from the beginning – it’s all problem solving. I think that’s kinda neat. It’s empowering the child reader. Maximum Ride more than anything else is about kids having to take responsibility for their own lives, operating as a group (even though Max is clearly in charge). This notion about taking responsibility and team work make the books cool and fun to read. I happen to believe that one of the best ways to get your kid reading is to give him or her books that they are going to like and these books have to be part of the curriculum. People think that there a lot of terrific young adult books, I don’t happen to believe that. There are a lot of books that kids are reading and they don’t like, they say ‘it’s ok, it’s better than my geometry book, but...’. These books don’t really get them committed. What I did with my son Jack was that three summers ago we said ‘read every day – 20 minutes, half an hour, as much as you want, but we’re going to go and buy you some books’. We went and bought him 8-10 books, and that first summer was ‘do I have to?’, second summer it was ‘ok’. Last summer it was ‘sure’ and he read fourteen books (he was ten), including To Kill a Mocking Bird. Now he reads in the car, he reads at dinner – we can’t stop him!

So what happened? Firstly, he has read dozens of books that he really likes – big bang! Simple, but that’s how life works - you have a lot of experiences that are positive and you’re on to something. Secondly, because he read a lot he’s a much better reader - how do you get good? You got to do it a lot. So if you give kids Silas Marner, it could be challenging for many of them. Shakespeare can be challenging. That’s why I started www.readkiddoread.com  which is a site for parents, grandparents, teachers and librarians where there are a whole lot of books, a couple of hundred, which are really cool for kids – there’s a good chance that kids will like these.

Who chooses these books?

 I’m involved, there’s also Judy Freeman who is very involved in the library system in the United States, and we have some people at Little Brown (although one reporter picked up on this connection and criticised it, she found that there are only about six Little Brown books on the list). The site is divided into levels – 0-6 year olds, transitional, and page-turners for older readers. There are write-ups on the books, a chat room, and lesson plans for teachers.

 Your characters are no strangers to technology, and your books are accompanied by websites, films, computer games, and so on. You also have a Facebook page, yet you say you write with a pencil. How do you view the relationship between new technologies and reading?

Look, it’s happening. In the United States right now I think 8% of the last two books I sold were ebooks, and if you watch kids – they’ll watch movies on a screen, see TV shows on a screen , and also read. It will become a larger and larger thing – people reading using something other than a book.

So you don’t view this as a competition?

 It’s irrelevant what I believe. I happen to love to go to book stores and libraries. I love going to things like The London Book Fair – walking around and looking at books. But people are just not going to do it that way.

You are a big advocate of reading and here to campaign for fathers reading with their sons - why this specific audience?

Really it’s about kids in general. The problem is that it’s tougher with boys - that’s why the campaign is targeting them – they’re just harder, they don’t read anything and it’s a disaster. You get boys that don’t know anything. They’re such a drain on society and such a terrible waste. We must get them reading because they have to grow, their brains must stretch. Right now the medium that is most open is books. Comparatively, television, films and computer games are a much narrower spectrum. Books are on a wide spectrum of subjects and points of view which is just not available on other media.

Why dads and male carers?

 Because it’s useful for kids to see people around them reading. It’s for the dads to read too.

Daniel X also came out as a graphic novel, and Maximum Ride as a manga series – some people claim that comics are an inferior form of reading, requiring less effort – what’s your stand on this art form?

Anything that gets kids reading is terrific. The more they read the better they’d get at it. I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to teach movies at school, but if we start with Ingmar Bergman everybody is going to say ‘we don’t like movies’. Let’s get serious folks – the reading level of a lot of kids and their ability to concentrate is really low. They have to start somewhere. And not to demean manga or graphic novels – a lot of people see them as a high art form. I don’t just mean in terms of the reader, but in terms of the media – Time magazine called Watchman one of the fifty most important novels of the century.

Do you read graphic novels?

A little bit. I’m not a huge graphic novel reader but I have read twenty or so.

Superheroes are usually alone – their families left behind or more often dead – Daniel X is no exception, yet he has the power to recreate his family in times of need and Max in Maximum Ride has the flock as an alternative family– why did you decide to break with this tradition?

I don’t care what other people have done. I have my story ideas and it’s irrelevant to me what’s happened already. If anything, I don’t want to do what’s happened. Women’s Murder Club, one of my series, is an example. Most detective fiction is based on the lone wolf (used to be only male, now male and female), drinks a lot, smokes a lot - I wanted a different kind of hero. Alex Cross too. He’s black family man, different from the stereotype created mostly by Hollywood. Why write otherwise? Authors are sometimes praised if their novels are so much like such and such mystery writer from the Noir period – to me it’s an incredible insult. It means you went and plagiarised the work of Raymond Chandler or Philip K Dick, in the case of science fiction – that’s terrible. Write your own story – come up with your own voice.

 It seems to be important to you, though, to empower young characters but simultaneously to anchor them in a family setting.

 Yes, generally speaking. I’m working on a series now in which the kid is not heroic at all – e’s the anti-hero.

Before Maximum Ride you published two novels for adults (When the Wind Blows, and The Lake House) in which a flock of winged children also appear led by a character called Max. There are many differences between these and the teen series, but notably the adult novels include sex, swearing and government involvement in morally dubious actions – all of which are missing from the teen series. Is this because you feel these are subject matters inappropriate for teens?

Yes, I’m not interested in putting a lot of cursing in front of kids – there’s no particular reason to do that. In the adult novels it’s somewhat more realistic – you hang out with cops, it’s just part of their language. I’m not particularly interested in getting into sex with kids – kids will find their own way there, but I’m not going to be leading them.

You finished working on a new series called Witch and Wizard – can you tell us a bit a about it? Is it your response to Harry Potter?

 No, magic does play a part in it, but it’s about a society that’s incredibly repressive. Imagine you woke up one day in England and it was a fascist society. That’s what happens to the kids in this series – they get dragged out of their beds and accused of being a witch and a wizard. Magic in this book represents the Arts – music, writing, painting. One of the most dangerous things in a repressive society is the Arts. The book is about magic representing free thought and how society represses it.

If magic is the Arts, how would technology be represented in a society like that then?

It’s more about conformity rather than technology in the book. It’s Hitler on a grander scale. One of things that I mention in these books is a list of the things that were banned by this new order – about fifteen books or so, and they’re all based on real books, although in disguise, so kids would recognise them even if they had a different title - for example I mention Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson. Then there are music groups that are banned, and museums that are banned.

You obviously have a strong feeling against censorship.

Obviously there have to be laws, and a red light, and I agree with that. But there are times when it’s just not called for – but I’m not going to get too political!

Thank you James Patteron for talking to Write Away