The idea there were kids out there who didn't love to read and write just as much as I did struck me. So I went around schools and tried to make other kids love to read and write.
The unsaid message of that endless rack of juniors' pushup bras? No matter what size you are, it still isn't good enough.
My parents homeschooled my sister and me for many years. Why? Because the local school insisted that I, being three, should go to preschool, and my sister, being five, should go to kindergarten. The problem? You learn your alphabet in preschool, and I was already reading chapter books.
Hoping to instill my love of learning in other children, I taught my first class at a local elementary school the year my first book, 'Flying Fingers,' debuted; since then, I have spoken at hundreds of schools, classrooms and conferences around the world.
Students read for tests and because their parents ask them to, but I think it's very important to tell children that you can read for fun, too, and to understand human spirit. It builds empathy.
As children, we have a tenuous idea of love; we often try to quantify it with how much we feel seen and heard.
The current concept of prom just seems so empty. Teenagers get dressed up to go to a dance at a fancy location. It encourages social inclusion or exclusion based on your ability or inability to snag a date.
I think one of the keys to better writing is releasing all of your ideas and to not be afraid. Dream big. This could be the greatest novel in the world you know.
Since the age of four, I've been exploring what I can do with the written word: everything from championing literacy and youth voice to raising awareness about world hunger.
We all love people who give credit to others for their success. Companies would probably do better with CEOs who didn't blow their own horn and ask for ridiculous salaries and new yachts every year.
CEOs of top companies could probably use a dose of not-asking-for-raise behavior and less self-entitlement, rather than us trying to change girls in order to fit into the common mold of what we think a CEO looks like.
I need to be allowed to make my own decisions and mistakes, take leaps - and fall - without receiving too much help, because it's what I'll be doing for the rest of my life.
I would love it if we made more comparisons between current issues and issues of the past. Maybe we'd realize that sometimes 'current issues' and 'past issues' are one and the same. Our world's people still fight over natural resources, kill in the name of religion, occupy regions and give them up - just as we did 'so long ago.'