Flipped

Born in Chicago to Dutch immigrant parents, young adult author Wendelin Van Draanen grew up in California with three siblings. Her parents were chemists, and she initially followed a similar science-minded path, studying ergonomics in college before earning her teaching credentials in graduate school. Afterward, she spent 15 years as a high school math and computer science teacher. Writing began as an outlet during a difficult time in her life, but it eventually grew into a career after her debut novel, How I Survived Being a Girl, was published in 1997. This was followed by her long-running Sammy Keyes mystery series, which spanned 18 titles beginning with Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief in 1998. In 2001, she published Flipped, a coming-of-age story that earned widespread acclaim and was adapted into a feature film by Rob Reiner in 2010. Beyond writing, Van Draanen is an accomplished runner who has completed multiple marathons, as well as a lifelong musician, playing everything from flute and piano to electric guitar. She lives in San Luis Obispo with her husband and two sons, and together they perform in their family rock band, Risky Whippet.

When Flipped was published in 2001, ideas about gender and identity for American youth were beginning to change, and Juli’s “headstrong” outspokenness and refusal to conform to more traditional expectations of female expression in the novel reflect this moment. At a time when conversations about girls’ confidence and leadership were growing more popular in schools and media alike, she’s presented as a girl unafraid of taking up space and charting her own course. Additionally, Van Draanen’s inclusion of Uncle David, a character with developmental disabilities, echoes the 1990s movement for greater disability awareness and representation, especially in the wake of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which prevented discrimination based on the grounds of disability. Together, these elements ground the novel in the shifting cultural climate of the late 20th century, when questions of equality, both for young women and for people with disabilities, were becoming central to the national conversation.

Wendelin Van Draanen has noted Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine (1957) as one of her key literary influences, especially its meditations on childhood and growing up. She has also cited the mystery series she read in her youth—Nancy Drew by Carolyn Keene and The Hardy Boys by Leslie McFarlane (which he published under the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon)—as early inspirations for her storytelling, especially for her Sammy Keyes series. For slightly older readers, Van Draanen’s The Running Dream (2011) is a critically acclaimed story about a young girl’s resilience after a life-altering accident. Beyond Van Draanen’s own work, Kate DiCamillo’s Because of Winn-Dixie (2000) also focuses on the ways a child’s view of the world can change through unexpected connections with others. And like Flipped, Because of Winn-Dixie was also adapted into a film, in 2005. For readers drawn to the romantic tension of the boy-and-girl-next-door dynamic that Juli and Bryce play out, Lynn Painter’s Better Than the Movies (2021) offers a more contemporary take, as the novel fuses lighthearted comedy with the naïve earnestness of first love.