Every great culture has cared a lot, one way or another, about the fate of its girls.

It can be demonstrated from history that no society has ever survived after its family life deteriorated.

Female adolescence is - universally - an emotionally and psychologically intense period.

Divorce in a young-adult novel means what being orphaned meant in a fairy tale: vulnerability, danger, unwanted independence.

In many respects a teenage girl's home is more important to her than at any time since she was a small child. She also needs emotional support and protection from the most corrosive cultural forces that seek to exploit her when she is least able to resist.

Girls are really looking to places that have limits and boundaries: where adults are the adults and there are rules, and where they feel safe.

My father was a writer; I've known a lot of children of writers - daughters and sons of writers, and it can be a hard way to grow up.