I would like to thank my coauthor, Amy Ellis Nutt, for her patience and support throughout the process of writing this book. Amy’s zeal for knowledge and investigative know-how helped glue together the many seemingly fragmented pieces of information we present here. The process of writing this book together produced another result—the discovery of a new friend and a friendship that will outlast this book and its future editions!

Words cannot describe my gratitude to my close friends and family, especially my sons, Andrew and Will; my parents; and of course Jeff for all those times they put up with postponed weekend events and other activities because I was “doing my book.” I have decided Jeff is the most patient person on the planet and deserves special thanks for all his support.

Much appreciation to Marcus Handy, a research specialist, and Mary Leonard, a biomedical artist, both at the University of Pennsylvania, for researching and producing, respectively, the final set of illustrations used in this book.

I would like to acknowledge many colleagues both at Harvard and at the University of Pennsylvania who have encouraged me to keep at the writing, and who have shared their research with me as I wrote this book. For the earliest encouragement, I would like to thank Patty Hager, former dean of students at Concord Academy, Massachusetts, whose many questions prompted me to respond by creating a program for the Elizabeth Hall symposium. I would like to thank my colleagues Dr. David Urion, associate professor of neurology and associate attending at Boston Children’s Hospital, and Maryanne Wolf, PhD, professor of neuropsychology at Tufts University in Massachusetts—both David and Maryanne shared the stage with me on several occasions as we gave early versions of our “Teen Brain 101” talks.

And last but definitely not least, thanks also go to Wendy Strothman for her advocacy of the need for this book, and to our editor, Claire Wachtel, for her wise counsel and clear thinking on and off its pages.