David A. Adler is the author of more than 235 children's books, including the Young Cam Jansen series. Danny's Doodles: The Jelly Bean Experiment (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, Sept. 3) kicks off a new series aimed at ages 7-10, and it's the first to feature Adler's original spot-art illustrations. He lives in Woodmere, N.Y.
On your nightstand now:
An alarm clock, my eyeglasses, and the somewhat new Jeffrey Archer book Only Time Will Tell.
Favorite book when you were a child:
I loved the Dr. Seuss book The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. In Dr. Seuss's story, even when someone takes off his hat, he may still have a hat on his head, again and again. The movie Groundhog Day has a similar premise. My favorite Dr. Seuss books are the early ones, including Bartholomew and the Oobleck, The King's Stilts and Horton Hatches the Egg.
Your top five authors:
David Halberstam, David McCullough (I like Davids), John Grisham, Jodi Picoult and Richard Ben Cramer.
Book you've faked reading:
I don't fake. So many people think that because I'm a writer I've read every book they have read, and I am quick to say, "I'm sorry. I don't know that book." And then that look! It seems to say, "What kind of a writer are you if you haven't read it? Even I read it, and I'm an accountant."
Book you're an evangelist for:
I often suggest to parents that they introduce their children to the many books written by Johanna Hurwitz. I call them "smile books." I smile when I read them because if I was a child, I'd want the people in her stories to be my friends.
Book you've bought for the cover:
It's not the cover that convinces me to buy a book. It's the author. Often the author is a retired politician. It's time I learned that I won't read more than 100 pages of a 1,000-page memoir.
Favorite line from a book:
"A little at a time." I know my answer should be lines from someone else's book, but those five words launched my career as a writer. I was a math teacher in a tough N.Y.C. school and my three-year-old nephew visited and kept asking questions. Whatever answer I gave just lead to another question. That night I began to write what became my first book, A Little at a Time, the story of a boy and his grandfather who walk through a city much like New York, visit a museum and see a huge dinosaur skeleton, get a snack and walk home. The entire story is in dialogue, questions the boy asks and the grandfather's answer which all end with "A Little at a Time." That was 235 books ago, but for me, it started it all. It led to my many math books, biographies, the Cam Jansen Mysteries and to Danny's Doodles: The Jelly Bean Experiment.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Ragtime. I love the era, the blend of fact and fiction and, of course, E.L. Doctorow's writing.