My friend Jon Scieszka (OK. I had a ten minute conversation with him at a party in Brooklyn last summer) is the U.S. Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and the author of the Stinky Cheese Man.

In an interview with the Washington Post:

Scieszka calls himself “a fan of stupid reading.”

“I’ve been a big champion of stuff like ‘Captain Underpants’ and ‘Junie B. Jones,’ ” he said. “It horrifies some parents and teachers because it is not grammatical and there are misspellings, but that is fun reading.”