After reading Jeannette's manuscript many times, I realized that the story unfolds in the girl's imagination: this trip had yet to happen. A warm, realistic relationship emerges from this fantasy road trip story... so much so that the characters seem concrete, lasting and alive. Jeannette Caines wrote this story from her own memories about a favorite aunt and I used members of my own family as models. In fact, my niece Keija, posing at age seven, told me that her picture on the cover was the real reason people read the book.