There is a crisis involving reading in certain communities.

I like people who take responsibility for their lives.

We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.

I couldn't speak well. I went to speech therapy for 10 years. And I was sort of frustrated in that sense.

The movie is more real in so many ways than the life I am leading. No, that’s not true. I just desperately wish this was only a movie.

Can you become The hope I need? Can you help me be More than it is written in my future Or past? Is there another me to find?

It is this language of values which I hope to bring to my books. . . . I want to bring values to those who have not been valued, and I want to etch those values in terms of the ideal. Young people need ideals which identify them, and their lives, as central . . . guideposts which tell them what they can be, should be, and indeed are.