By using the life story of Peter Puget to illustrate the relationship of prepubescent learning to the nature of the adolescent brain, I may have lost interest of those readers with no affinity with the Pacific Northwest.

“When I told my 16-year-old son the title of your book,” said a teacher in Manchester ten days ago, “he responded with uncharacteristic enthusiasm, ‘that book must have been written just for me. That’s why I’m so frustrated. Endless hours of schooling seem to be giving me little preparation for the world I think I live in.’”