Beatrice Mathews Sparks was born on January 15,1918, in Goldberg, Idaho. A Mormon and an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Sparks attended the University of California at Los Angeles and Brigham Young University in Utah, and has worked as a youth counselor, a teacher, a music therapist, a public speaker, and a writer. She continues to write books as well as columns for several periodicals, spreading her messages to teens around the country. Sparks became interested in young adult problems when she began working with troubled teens in 1955. She has spoken to teens in crisis all over the country—in the Utah State Mental Hospital where she worked as a music therapist, at Brigham Young University where she taught continuing education courses, and on a cross-country trip with her husband where she had the opportunity to talk with...