I got the manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone [Sorcerer's Stone in the U.S.]. I read it that night, and you'd expect the sky to part and thunderclaps to sound—but it didn't. I just knew it was a great book.

I didn't know that a dozen publishers had turned it down or that the author, J.K. Rowling, had become utterly discouraged. I think everybody else passed on it for all the wrong reasons: It was long, the title was unusual, and the story is pretty dark. Rowling needed someone to see what it was, a story of bravery and danger and adventure but with great humor—as opposed to what it wasn't, a traditional children's book.

I choose books purely based on what I believe children will react to. If you carry the child within you, that's what works. You need a real ability to feel the hope, wonder, burning sense of injustice, fear, or rage of childhood—an unfettered mind that still dreams, that goes with the truth of story.