The protected place in space and time that we once called childhood has grown shorter.

we are a small, interconnected world; that we are all safe or none of us are; that we are all well cared for or all at risk.

I'm a perfectly good carrot that everyone is trying to turn into a rose. As a carrot, I have good color and a nice leafy top. When I'm carved into a rose, I turn brown and wither.

Traditionally parents have wondered what their teens were doing, but now teens are much more likely to be doing things that can get them killed.

We live in a world filled with language. Language imparts identity, meaning, and perspective to our human community. Writers are either polluters or part of the clean-up team. Just as the language of power and greed has the potential to destroy us, the language of reason and empathy has the power to save us. Writers can inspire a kinder, fairer, more beautiful world, or invite selfishness, stereotyping, and violence. Writers can unite people or divide them.

Girls developed eating disorders when our culture developed a standard of beauty that they couldn't obtain by being healthy. When unnatural thinness became attractive, girls did unnatural things to be thin.

Girls who stay true to themselves manage to find some way to respect the parts of themselves that are spiritual. They work for the betterment of the world. Girls who act from their false selves are often cynical about making the world a better place. They have given up hope. Only when they reconnect with the parts of themselves that are alive and true will they again have the energy to take on the culture and fight to save the planet.