Thanks to all the girls named Ashley (there were so many of them!) and all the other youngsters whom I cannot name for reasons of confidentiality.

I was earning a Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign when I conducted the research for this book. I benefited from having as my advisor Susan Fowler, a truly gifted teacher. I was instructed in qualitative research methods by the very best: Robert Stake (my dissertation advisor), Liora Bresler, and Alan Peshkin. Adelle Renzaglia, Bob Henderson, Jeanette McCollum, Mickie Ostrosky, and Tess Bennett were some of the other faculty who made the special education department an intellectually vibrant, socially supportive, and community-minded place.

Thanks to Jeffrey Tolley and Susan Davis for permission to reprint two poems, and to John Harney for believing in the importance of this book. At various stages of the writing, I received important editorial comments from Sarah Hadden, Beatrice Borman Fink, Helen Zimmerberg, and Randall Miller, M.D.

When I was working on my dissertation, I used to call up Betty Zimmerberg and read drafts of chapters to her out loud over the phone. When she came to visit, we drove around Wabashy, and I showed her the location of the baseball diamonds, the Karate School, the trailer parks, and the Chinese buffet. She remains my most trusted literary advisor, and in 1998 we began writing a new book together. The first chapter was called "Our Wedding."

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