I spent most of my college years inside a brick building cuddled up by a roaring fire, debating life’s biggest questions while eating homemade bread (Philosophy professors really do go the extra mile).

We spent a lot of time arguing different points and opinions without ever really coming to any concrete conclusions. But, as any philosopher will tell you—it’s about the dialogue and the discoveries made along the way, not definitive answers. (In fact, I’m pretty sure there aren’t any.)

It's always been my belief that anyone can become a philosopher, if they decide they want to ask themselves, and the world, the right questions. This includes children. Especially children. At the heart of my books are philosophical questions. Kant’s Categorical Imperative becomes: If you were a time traveling sixth grader faced with the impossible question of whether to save your dad or save the world, what would you do? The Socratic notion that fearing death is pointless becomes: If you were a teenager who could see death coming, how would it impact your life, and would the optimistic hot guy who just moved to town change that?

My goal in writing for children across middle grade and young adult is to make sure I see them clearly, and in return, for them to see themselves and their world in a new way. Children’s literature taps into that finite window in a person’s life where the world seems so big and also conquerable at the same time. My hope is to create stories and characters that walk alongside the reader, through whatever tough questions life asks of them, long after the final chapter.