“I have always been inspired by the courage, determination and dignity of the 

Birmingham child marchers in the summer of 1963. I saw in them role models 

for a generation that is in desperate need of positive peer role models. I saw 

in their heroic tale an inspirational, but little-known story that needs to be 

shared with today’s youth. In my main character, Angel, I saw an opportunity 

to present an example of strength, empathy and resistance to peer pressure 

that today’s youth could relate to. As a forty-something white man from New 

Zealand, the first challenge was to get into the mind of a 13-year-old black girl from Alabama.”