The inspiration for INSIDE OUT GIRL

A family therapist told me her favorite clients are the children with non-verbal learning disorders, because of their loving dispositions-naiveté, and utter inability to connect with other children. She loved that they talked too close, constantly knocked things over, said the wrong thing, and got lost in an office they'd been coming to for five years. Often their clothes are inside out and their lack of motor skills means they may not be able to brush their own teeth. Frustrating, to say the least.

But they will hug you until you weep. They wear their hearts on a neon sign above their heads. They see nothing wrong with marching straight up to the meanest clique in middle grade or the bully everyone fears and wrapping themselves around them in a full-body hug. And they cannot for the life of them see why they're rejected.

I thought about what it would mean to have a child with NLD and the joy and pain that would entail. Then I wondered what that parent would do if he found out he was dying and had to leave his daughter in a world that doesn't understand her.

What do you want readers to take away with them after reading the book?

In the U.S. alone, there are approximately 15 million children, adolescents and adults with learning disabilities. Non-verbal learning disability is every bit as prevalent and every bit as devastating as Asperger's Syndrome, and in my opinion even more poignant, yet it has had little media attention. We all grew up with kids who had NLD-the child who never got the joke, who was bullied incessantly, who came to school in a Tonka truck t-shirt in sixth grade, and who wouldn't stop talking about a certain topic-and we all probably misunderstood them. Parents need to be aware of this condition and teach their children that kids with learning disabilities such as this have misfirings in their brain. They aren't nerds, or geeks, nor are they stupid. They're actually wired differently and should be treated with respect and decency.