How did you get inside the mind of an eighth grade girl in The Wish? Was the book based on your experience as an eighth grader?

"Wilma certainly wasn't me as an eighth grader because I was never in the eighth grade. New York City had a special program called SP, Special Progress. If you were in it, you skipped 8th grade.

"But I had a very bad tenth grade year and drew on my 10th grade in writing the book…People ask me if I am like Ella and I'm not; I am a lot like Wilma. I'm more like Wilma than I am like any other character that I've written. She's a little more stolid, more plodding than I am. And I think that she's a scientist and I'm not. But in kindliness, in perspective on the world, in vulnerability, we are a lot alike. So I didn't have to go far for Wilma. And then BeeBee is a child of the sixties. Her language is sixties language. I don't know exactly where Nina came from, but once I got that points business, Nina was right there. Ardis was more of a struggle. She's not so obvious. But I can see her too.

"I think that The Wish is my favorite book in terms of characterization. You know who's talking almost without the tag lines."

Have children asked any questions about The Wish that have surprised you?

"I volunteer teach creative writing at the local middle school and, in the summers, at the local library. HarperCollins sent me a lot of bound galleys of The Wish , so I gave a copy to each of the kids. They came back the next week and apparently, they hadn't been able to put the book down. They read it straight through. As soon as I walked in, Anna said, 'We have to talk…Is Wilma okay the next year?' A few kids really wanted to know, more solidly than I put it in the book that Wilma really is all right."

Are you considering continuing on with Wilma as a character?

"I have an idea for a couple more wishes, but not for Wilma. I have a wish for Nina in mind. And I have a wish for Ardis. I don't know yet from whose point of view it would be told. I don't know if it would be told from Wilma talking about her friends or whether it would be told in the first person, which is probably more the way I will go. I might like to do a wish for all of them. I know I have more in mind."