What My Mother Doesn't Know - Tapa dura

This book is about me.

It tells

the heart-stoppingly riveting story

of my first love.

And also of my second.

And, okay, my third love, too.

It's not that I'm boy crazy.

It's just that even though

I'm almost fifteen

I've been having sort of a hard time

trying to figure out the difference

between love and lust.

It's like

my mind

and my body

and my heart

just don't seem to be able to agree

on anything.

Before becoming a writer, Sonya Sones taught animation, worked as a photographer, and edited movies. Her first book, Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and won a Christopher Award, the Claudia Lewis Poetry Award, and the Myra Cohn Livingston Poetry Award. It was also an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers.

Ms. Sones says, "In Stop Pretending, which is autobiographical, there are some poems about my first love. I had such a good time writing about those first feelings of overwhelming passion that I knew I wanted to delve into them more deeply. That's why I wrote this book. These poems are definitely not autobiographical. Especially not the embarrassing ones."

Ms. Sones lives with her family in California. She can be reached at SonyaSones@aol.com.