Camp Horizons, where Breanna ends up at team-building camp, is not real. But it is loosely based on a real team-building camp that starts 6th grade for students at Slauson Middle School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. At the real camp, the high ropes are not especially high, there is no lake that stretches out beyond the horizon, and there is no softball diamond. But it is a place for kids to learn and grow together.

Before I wrote Sky Ropes, I spent a few days at this camp, observing and listening. I watched many kids go up the high ropes and I heard what they said. It wasn’t long before I realized I couldn’t write the book until I did the ropes course myself. I am afraid of heights. Not the way Breanna is, but still, enough that I didn’t want to do them. At the end of two days, I went up. Mostly I remember how it was really important not to look down.  And also how much my legs shook. I learned that Breanna is gutsy, like every kid at that camp, whether they did the ropes or not. That was real.