As children, we have a tenuous idea of love; we often try to quantify it with how much we feel seen and heard.

My family joke that I'm really a very senior person who accidentally happens to be 11.

Hoping to instill my love of learning in other children, I taught my first class at a local elementary school the year my first book, 'Flying Fingers,' debuted; since then, I have spoken at hundreds of schools, classrooms and conferences around the world.

Since the age of four, I've been exploring what I can do with the written word: everything from championing literacy and youth voice to raising awareness about world hunger.

Success on the front of women's rights will look like a world not only with obvious advances - where no girl is denied access to education, for instance - but also one with more subtle changes in how we regard gender and gender stereotypes.

With writing, I can express myself, really, and share my ideas and just let my thoughts flow out.

The fact that a baby can be born today and condemned to a life of hardship, struggle, and discrimination simply because of sex is enraging.