For me, a story begins with music: I feel the rhythm, the cadence, the pulse of the characters and their voices and the setting. Because I had just finished writing a book called 'Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine,' I was already filled with the music of the lives and culture of the Irish people, so I thought, why not use it?

Born a slave, Harriet Tubman was determined not to remain one. She escaped from her owners in Maryland on the Underground Railroad in 1849 and then fearlessly returned thirteen times to help guide family members and others to freedom as the most famous conductor of the Underground Railroad.

For 'The Journal of Finn Reardon,' I traveled to New York City and walked the streets where Finn and his friends would have lived, worked, and played. I visited the Tenement Museum on Orchard Street and toured an actual flat in which families like Finn's might have lived.

I never intended to be a teacher, but once I started teaching, I found that junior high kids are easy to get hooked on, and I stayed for nearly twenty years.