Girls read a boy book, but boys don't necessarily want to read a girl book.

A good book ought to bring out lots of different responses from those that read it - none of them pre-planned, and all of them very personal. Whatever they take away from the reading of the book is valuable.

With the 'Hazelwood High' trilogy, I wasn't sure I was writing a trilogy. I would just write one book, then another, and then another, because the young adults who wrote me told me that they wanted to read more.

When students ask me today, 'What do you think we should learn from this book?' I tell them, 'Whatever you got out of it.'

I do research for every single book, regardless. For 'Double Dutch,' I learned to jump and learned the scoring system. For 'November Blues,' I interviewed pregnant teens. I like to get up close and personal with the kids involved in the situations I write about.

I worked at Sears as a salesperson when I was in college. Makes me nicer to folks to have to stand all day and be nice to picky people.