The book in which my name first appeared in print is called A Country Christmas Treasury.

I worked for a small publisher who specialized in how-to books, the kind of books that have photos with informative captions below each one. Writing felt like hard work-something that’s still true today.Īfter the songwriting came my first job in publishing. I learned to play guitar and began writing songs, but again, only when I felt like it. But I didn’t write much on my own-just some poetry now and then. That praise sent me off to Northwestern University feeling like I was a pretty good writer, and occasionally professors there also encouraged me and complimented the essays I was required to write as a literature major. And she’d also written in large, scrawly red writing, “Andrew-this poem is so funny. First, I’d gotten an A-a rare event in this teacher’s class. Two things were amazing about that paper. I know those quiet summers helped me begin to think like a writer.ĭuring my senior year at Springfield High School my English teacher handed back a poem I’d written. All day there was time to swim and fish and mess around outside, and every night, there was time to read. There was no TV there, no phone, no doorbell-and email wasn’t even invented. I don't know a single writer who wasn’t a reader first.īefore moving to Illinois, and even afterwards, our family spent summers at a cabin on a lake in Maine. I'm certain there's a link between reading good books and becoming a writer. I didn’t think about being a writer at all back then, but I did love to read. My parents were avid readers and they gave that love of books and reading to me and to all my brothers and sisters. Highly recommended.I was born in Camden, New Jersey in 1949 and lived in Oaklyn and Cherry Hill until the middle of sixth grade. Teens will identify with Bobby's experience of being essentially invisible. The ensuing drama, involving a nationwide search for other invisible people and a break-in to the computer database at Sears, Roebuck legal department headquarters ('News flash: Invisible people make excellent spies and thieves') is authentic enough in detail to allow readers to overlook the nuttiness of it all. Attempting to take matters in his own hands, he ventures out-naked-to the library, where he meets a blind girl who becomes a natural confidant. Doing his best to adapt, Bobby informs his parents and grows more and more frustrated as they try to control his (unseen) life.

But what would happen if you actually did wake up invisible one day? Fifteen-year-old Bobby is faced with this curious predicament in Andrew Clements's compelling novel Things Not Seen. Teens, especially those not in the Uber-popular set, know all about feeling invisible.

Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements