On a stormy night two hundred years ago, a young woman sat in a dark house and dreamed of her life as a writer. She longed to follow the path her own mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, had started down, but young Mary Shelley had yet to be inspired. As the night wore on, Mary grew more anxious. The next day was the deadline that her friend, the poet Lord Byron, had set for writing the best ghost story. After much talk of science and the secrets of life,...

"Finn is awakened in the night by something rustling around inside their head. It isn't heavy like a worry, it doesn't swirl like a fear, and it certainly isn't shaped like a question. It's something much more exciting--an idea! Finn can't wait to share it, and they do, at school, with their best friend Sima. Sharing energizes the idea. Then the more Finn thinks about it, the more the idea grows, and by the end of the day the idea is huge and amazing....