Goodbye.

Dear Paula Danziger,

Thank you for the books.

Thank you for always being so very nice to me when you came to talk at the elementary school. You told me once that I was a great reporter. I must have been , because the newspaper only lasted the one year I was the editor. Thank you for encouraging us all to write.

Thank you for making growing up easier, knowing that we had an ally, a grown-up who really got what it was like to be a kid. Thank you for being honest about your imperfections. It was easier to be pleased with what I saw in the mirror knowing that Marcy was fat and she learned to like herself, and knowing that Cassie had asthma and Rosie and Phoebe were jealous and Kendra's expectations too high, and none of them knew how to behave around boys.

Thank you for capturing the towns I grew up in so perfectly. Thank you for loving them so much. Whenever I think I hated growing up there, I can just read The Divorce Express again and see how much Phoebe's father loves Woodstock, and her mother loves New York, and she loves both, and I remember.

Thank you for loving bad jokes and purple and felt-tip markers.

I'm really sorry that you had to go.

Love,
Annika