I think the idea that in a riddle there are two answers or two doors and that you have to pick the right one is almost sort of delightful to kids who are making so many choices every day and who often don't know for a while if they've made the right one. It's not as if you make a choice and then *ding* you have some sense of "oh, this is perfect and I'm happy" - it's never that simple.

Mom's always telling me to smile and hoping I'll turn into a smiley person, which, to be honest, is kind of annoying.

Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean.

She's called the secretary, but as far as I can tell she basically runs the school.

Didn't you ever have a father yourself? You don't want him for a reason. You want him because he's your father.' So I figured it's because I never had a father that I don't want one now. A person can't miss something she never had.

I don't know whether I could visit a new neighborhood now and have a kid's set of observations about a place. I no longer can really think like a child, though I can remember thinking like one.

Beautiful and fresh, Girl Saves Boy is full of the absolute truth-life is complicated. I could not put it down.