Hannah M. asked Wendelin Van Draanen:

Hello! I loved you book 'Flipped', and I was wondering how you got inspiration for it?

Wendelin Van Draanen Hi, Hannah! When I was a classroom teacher I couldn't help but notice that the kids in my classes did the same thing I did at their age: Crush on someone without really knowing them. Despite a teacher's best intentions, there's no coaching rational considerations into kids with crushes. What could we possibly know about how they're feeling, right? And since the best epiphanies come about through experience, I hoped that showing characters experience an evolution from seeing only the surface to seeing what lies beneath it might be a way to encourage thought on what love really is. The rest of the story built up from there. Thanks for asking! (Please visit my website if you're interested in knowing more--there's a lot there on Flipped.)

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