What is true about Sahara Special?
Sahara Special is fiction, which means it comes from my imagination. All stories start in real life, though. I was inspired by children I went to school with, and children I taught. Inspiration is a kind of starting point that comes from thinking about people that have qualities that attract you or interest you. When I wrote this book, I started by thinking about these people, and had a picture in my mind of what they looked like. For some characters, I looked at old class photos that belonged to friends, so those were children I didn’t know, and I tried to imagine what they might be like on the inside. Sahara started with remembering one particular girl I knew who was very, very quiet but a very good reader and writer. She liked collecting stickers and had a hard time making friends, and people didn’t see all that was good in her right away. I always wished that I was a kid again so I could be her friend, but I was a teacher, so I was her ally instead. Paris’s character started with a
