Writing in a wry, omniscient third-person narrative voice, Perkins deftly captures the tentativeness and incompleteness of adolescence.

In 38 brief chapters, this poetic, postmodern novel experiments with a variety of styles: haiku, song lyrics, question-and-answer dialogue and split-screen scenarios. With seeming yet deliberate randomness, Perkins writes an orderly, innovative and risk-taking book in which nothing happens and everything happens.

When a book is named a Newbery winner, it means that probably every public library in the nation, and most schools in the nation, will have a copy of this book. Plus, it will be one that will be gifted to children everywhere. It will be discussed, and it will probably never go out of print, so this will change her life significantly.

She and her publisher created a book that was like nothing we have ever seen. It's beautiful.

The biggest mistake parents make is thinking they're done parenting when adolescence kicks in. They just have to take a step back, but remain involved. They can't let the child push them out of their lives,

I think one is naturally impressed by anything having a beginning a middle and an ending when one is beginning writing and that it is a natural thing because when one is emerging from adolescence, which is really when one first begins writing one feels that one would not have been one emerging from adolescence if there had not been a beginning and a middle and an ending to anything.