Jeanette Ingold is the author of three young adult novels that feature teen heroines confronting unusual challenges. In her 1996 debut, The Window, Ingold created a protagonist facing family tragedy and sudden disability; Pictures, 1918, published two years later, portrays teens in a small Texas town worrying about World War I; Airfield advances to the 1930s in its tale of a young woman's fascination with flight. As Ingold remarked in an interview with Authors and Artists for Young Adults (AAYA) "I hope my readers will come away from my books having learned some neat things--how something works, what a particular career might be like, what life would be like in a particular time or place. I want those of my readers who are going through tough times to take courage from reading about other young people who have survived difficulties and seemingly impossible choices."

Ingold, married and the mother of...