Cynthia Voigt is an accomplished storyteller noted for her well-developed characters, interesting plots, and authentic atmosphere. In her novels for children and young adults, she examines such serious topics as child abandonment, verbal abuse, racism, and coping with amputation. Reviewers have praised Voigt's fluent and skillfully executed writing style, compelling topics, and vividly detailed descriptions. Critics also have described Voigt's themes as universal and meaningful to young adults, particularly noting her expertise in fashioning convincing characters and rich relationships in which both adults and children grow in understanding. In a Twentieth-Century Children's Writers essay, Sylvia Patterson Iskander described the qualities that have made Voigt's writings appealing to readers: "Voigt's understanding of narrative techniques, power to create memorable characters, admirable but not goody-goody, knowledge of the problems of youth, and desire to teach by transporting readers into the characters' inner lives result in reversing unpromising, perhaps tragic, situations to...