Only a few years after her first publication, Francesca Lia Block has already carved out a unique piece of young adult turf for herself and the characters she has created. With the publication in 1989 of Weetzie Bat, she set the agenda for a new direction in young adult novels: stories of Los Angeles subculture replete with sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll--for the nineties. With a cast of characters ranging from Weetzie Bat, a punk princess in pink, to her lover, My Secret Agent Lover Man, and her best friend Dirk and his boyfriend, to their common offspring, Witch Baby and Cherokee, Block's novels create postmodernist fairy tales where love and art are the only cures in a world void of adult direction. Praised and criticized for her edgy tales of urban adventure, Block is still somewhat in awe of her instant success and of the stir her...