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All books have an inspiration.  Mine was my mother.  She's worked 40 years at a remarkable preschool in Columbus, Ohio where they truly believe in free play.  When I say truly, I mean they go so far as to give three and four-year-olds boxing gloves and allow them to wrestle and roughhouse in the classroom.

When I learned my 10-year-old neighbor was reading The Hunger Games, my jaw dropped.  Really?  Already?  The words aren't hard. It's the topic.  Children killing other children in a complex moral/ political tale that's meant for teenagers.

The number of books published each year is boggling. Last year 200,000 new books were released. And that's only counting traditional publishers. 400,000 self-published books were launched, too.

I still remember the salesman who came to my 10th grade class.  He was hawking magazines, I think, for a school fundraiser.  What I remember distinctly were his words.  He lifted a stack of magazines and proclaimed: "Information!  This is the Information Age."

Part of my research for my next book involves train travel, so I've been querying train companies in England.  Today I received an email with a highly satisfying answer: yes, kids can ride the train without an adult. As the polite customer service person advised me, it's good to consider whether the child is comfortable riding alone, and responsible enough to get off at the right stop.

This country is fed up with excessive homework.  I know, because every day people stumble on my blog by typing in google searches such as "why there should be no homework" and "are there teachers who disagree with homework?"

My first blog post went up last spring. I had one reader the first day. Since then I've welcomed more than 35,000 readers to this "renegade" blog. Whew! Thanks to each and every thoughtful reader.

We recently got a new set of blocks for my son.  Castle blocks - the kind with painted drawbridges and turrets.  He loves all things knights and horses, and so far many towers and dungeons have been built, crashed and tumbled.

While researching my book, I've visited a lot of preschool classrooms.  Preschool, pre-K, Young Fives, kindergarten, Montessori, public, private, charter, you name it.  I've observed too many to count.  One thing I almost always see in each early ed. classroom is an enormous calendar.

I wrote an op-ed piece about the President’s call for universal preschool for 4-year-olds, and my editor replied asking ‘surely you don’t think having the kids learn the alphabet and numbers 1-10 is too academic?’