Winner of the 2001 Coretta Scott King Award and nominee for the 2002 National Book Award, Jacqueline Woodson writes about "invisible" people: young girls, minorities, homosexuals, the poor, all the individuals who, many feel, are ignored or forgotten in mainstream America. They are the people, as the author wrote in a Horn Book article, "who exist on the margins." An African American and lesbian herself, Woodson knows first-hand what it is like to be labeled, classified, stereotyped, and pushed aside. Nevertheless, her stories are not intended to champion the rights of minorities and the oppressed. Rather, they celebrate people's differences. Her characters are not so much striving to have their rights acknowledged as they are struggling to find their own individuality, their own value as people. "I feel compelled to write against stereotypes," Woodson commented, "hoping people will see that some issues know no color, class, sexuality. No--I don't feel...