Paula Danziger attributes many of the ideas for her young adult stories to her own childhood and also to her experience as an english teacher.

She taught at the junior high and high school level and was also a college counselor before she chose writing as a full-time career. She has said that everything in her life offers a connection to her writing and she has certainly managed to "connect" with her young reading audience in her novels. She deals directly with the tough problems young people face today, such as poor self-image and surviving divorce. Her novel, There's a Bat in Bunk Five is a sequel to the very popular The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, dealing with the same character who is far from the perfect "ideal" of a teen-ager. Her own turbulent childhood relationship with her father may be seen in the...