Welcome To The Island Of Misfit Toys.

You Know . . . A Lot Of Kids At School Hate Their Parents. Some Of Them Got Hit. And Some Of Them Got Caught In The Middle Of Wrong Lives. Some Of Them Were Trophies For Their Parents To Show The Neighbors Like Ribbons Or Gold Stars. And Some Of Them Just Wanted To Drink In Peace.

Patrick Started Driving Really Fast, And Just Before We Got To The Tunnel. Sam Stood Up, And The Wind Turned Her Dress Into Ocean Waves. When We Hit The Tunnel, All The Sound Got Scooped Up Into A Vacuum, And It Was Replaced By A Song On The Tape Player. A Beautiful Song Called “landslide.” When We Got Out Of The Tunnel, Sam Screamed This Really Fun Scream, And There It Was. Downtown. Lights On Buildings And Everything That Makes You Wonder. Sam Sat Down And Started Laughing. Patrick Started Laughing. I Started Laughing. And In That Moment, I Swear We Were Infinite.

Maybe These Are My Glory Days, And I'm Not Ever Realizing It Because They Involve A Ball.

When You Publish A Book, You Do So In Part To End The Silence. All Censorship Is Silence. I Would Never, As An Author, Feel Right Requiring A Young Person Whose Family Would Object To The Book To Read It. Just As I Would Never Force That Person To Read It, I Would Ask Those Folks To Not Force Others Not To Read It. To Me, That Is Just Good Manners.

It's Like Looking At All The Students And Wondering Who's Had Their Heart Broken That Day, And How They Are Able To Cope With Having Three Quizzes And A Book Report On Top Of That.