Other ambitions came and went, but writing stayed on, and she majored in creative writing at Purdue University, then went on to a Master's Degree in English.

It was thrilling to discover she could make the magic herself, and she decided then and there to be a writer. Born in Ohio and raised in Wisconsin, she wrote her first story in the fourth grade. She always thought there was a special magic in the little black marks on paper that could turn into whole worlds and real people. Those that were read to her and those she read to herself, often late at night with a flashlight under the covers. and Jake the value of the special gifts they've had all along. Tolan's hilarious tale, a local production of The Sound of Music directed, stagecrafted, choreographed, and costumed by Apple-whites - brings the family together and shows E.D. The only thing they have in common is the determination to survive the family's eccentricities.

and Jake, so nearly the same age, are quickly paired in the family's first experiment in cooperative education.The two clash immediately, of course. Each and every Applewhite is an artist through and through - except E.D., the smart, scruffy girl with a deep longing for order and predictability. Only weeks into September, the middle school in Traybridge, North Carolina, has thrown him out, too.Now there's only one place left that will take him - a home school run by the most outrageous, forgetful, chaotic, quarrelsome family you'll ever meet. Word has it that he burned down his old school and then was kicked out of every other school in his home state.

Jake semple surviving the applewhites