Gratitude is another thing that increases a person’s happiness, and when it comes to this book, I am happily grateful to so many people:
First of all, to Libba Bray, whose supreme kindness on a supremely cold day got me thinking about other kindness stories.
To Sarah Mlynowski, Jennifer E. Smith, and Robin Wasserman, who brainstormed with me until we came up with the perfect concept—and the perfect series title.
To my wonderful readers (and re-readers): Lindsay Aaronson, Michael Buckley, Jen Calonita, Lia Carson, Gitty Daneshvari, Julia DeVillers, Rachel Feld, Jackie Friedland, Adele Griffin, Katie Hartman, Melissa Losquadro, Wendy Mass, Jess Rothenberg, Leila Sales, Laura Schechter, Bianca Turetsky, Kai Williams, and Meg Wolitzer.
To all my friends who have shown me incredible kindness, again and again and again. Shout-outs to my weekly (sometimes daily) sounding boards: Amy Bressler, Erin Cummings, Jennifer Daly, Regan Hofmann, Arielle Warshall Katz, Logan Levkoff, Geralyn Lucas, and Katie Stein.
To my elementary school/middle school test-readers: Abigail, Anjali, Asher, Chase, Daniel, Lia, Livy, Maverick, Rachael, Sasha, Sara, and Tesa. And special thanks to Avery Aaronson and Chloe Brawer, for their amazing notes; and to Madden and Brody Shuffler, who skipped watching a football game to listen to me read the first draft of this book, from beginning to end. (If that’s not kindness, I don’t know what is.)
To Laura Dail and Tamar Rydzinski, at the Laura Dail Literary Agency, Inc., for taking such good care of the things I write (and of me).
To my editor, Mary Kate Castellani, who stuck with me through every version of Chloe’s story, until we got to the right one; to the Bloomsbury team: Eshani Agrawal, Colleen Andrews, Diane Aronson, Erica Barmash, Beth Eller, Courtney Griffin, Melissa Kavonic, Linette Kim, Cindy Loh, Donna Mark, Lizzy Mason, Catherine Onder, Emily Ritter, and Claire Stetzer; to Nancy Seitz, for her careful read of the manuscript; and to Kim Smith, for the cutest cover ever.
Finally, always, to my father, Joel Sheinmel; to my mother, Elaine Sheinmel, and my stepdad, Phil Getter; to my sister, Alyssa Sheinmel, and my brother-in-law, JP Gravitt; to my stepsiblings, their spouses, and all of their children; and to our entire extended, wacky, wonderful family: thank you for being kind and for being mine.
Love,
Courtney