My publisher is releasing my 2001 book, Breathing Underwater, with a new cover, its third. The reason for this is, basically, because boys don't like to read the book with its current cover, which shows a boy and a girl. I actually got an e-mail from a teacher who wanted to know how to buy 100 copies of the book with its 2001 cover for this reason ( Read more... )

I'm surprised I forgot this one thing I learned from Richard Peck. It's one of the most important. Well, they're all important, but I think this one is especially important to me ( Read more... )

The world lost Richard Peck yesterday, and I am saddened, not only because a great voice is now silent and children’s literature has lost one of its most generous souls, but also because he will never see the book I dedicated to him, my fourteenth and the one that, other than my first, most exemplified the ideals I learned from Richard. So I’m ( Read more... )

I got an e-mail from a young woman who read Breathing Underwater in school. I actually get e-mails from this teacher's class every year for maybe the past ten years. They're always well-thought-out, and I always answer them.  It blows me away that, 17 years and 12 books later, readers are still connecting with this book and these characters. ( Read more... )