The hardback and the paperback editions of Stop Pretending both have the same cover. But the hardback and paperback editions of What My Mother Doesn't Know are not at all alike.  

Russell Gordon, a terrific designer at Simon and Schuster, designed the paperback cover. I don't have any idea who that girl is on the cover, but she's cute, isn't she?  

Cherise Miracle Harper designed the hardback cover of What My Mother Doesn't Know, but I contributed some of the pictures on it. For instance, I drew those drawings of the old people, when I was around Sophie's age.  

And the photo on the back cover, of the boy wearing a stack of hats, is a picture I took of my son, Jeremy. You can't really see him, though, because of that purple blurb that goes right across his face. Also on the back cover, is a photo I took of a dog wearing sunglasses on the boardwalk at Venice Beach.

The photo on the front cover, of the girl hugging the boy, was taken by me, too. My fabulous editor at Simon and Schuster, David Gale, said they wanted to have a picture of Sophie and Robin to put inside that little frame just below the title, and he wondered if I would like to take it. So I said I'd give it a try. 

My first stop was the local high school, where I asked the drama coach if he knew of any brown-haired, blue-eyed girls who might like to pose for me. He arranged for me to meet a student of his named Emily. When I saw her, I didn't quite know what to think. Was this how Sophie looked? It was funny, because I suddenly realized that the whole time I had been writing What My Mother Doesn't Know, I'd been seeing the story through Sophie's eyes. But I had never actually turned around to take a look at her face. So I didn't really know what she looked like! After I spent a little time with Emily, though, I realized that she'd be perfect. Here is the photo I took of her. The boy she's hugging is a friend she invited to the photo shoot. I told her I needed a boy with long hair, but that I didn't want his face to show, because I wanted to let the readers imagine Robin's face for themselves.

So far, What My Mother Doesn't Know has been published in the United States, France, Germany, Korea, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom.

By the way, if you look in the lower right hand corner of page 231 you will see a line drawing of a couple dancing. I drew this picture based on the painting called "Le Bal a Bougival," by Jean Renoir, the one I mentioned in my book.  

Very few of my readers seem to have noticed this, but if you look at that same spot on the rest of the pages of the book, and run them quickly past your fingers, you can see the couple kiss. It's a little tiny flip book, inspired by the years I spent as an animator. Check it out!