I'm very interested in getting inside the heads of people society discards, people on the fringe, especially immigrant kids. We dismiss them without getting into details of who they are.

I've worked with homeless kids, kids in foster care, and I've never met a kid who couldn't be reached.

My last book, 'The Language of Flowers,' I wrote completely on naptime, when my little kids were asleep.

We were pressured to accept kids we were not qualified to handle. And we do that to people all the time, which is why we don't have enough foster parents.

I'm missing work. We didn't have enough money for preschool. I had a panic attack. I couldn't do it. I became one of those horrible foster parents who give the kids back.

I think that the hardest thing about working with young people in foster care who've been through this kind of neglect and abuse is really to convince them that they are worthy of being loved. And I think because often they don't feel worthy of it, that's why they push people away.