Twelve-year-old Juniper has a wonderful problem. The only child in a family of avid readers and writers, she confesses that she’s a bit of a mess where paper is concerned. Second to books, Juniper has a passion for funky purses, but she manages to keep her purse collection in line more easily than her ever-accumulating piles of novels, newspapers, and original creative writing manuscripts.

Someday, she hopes to be an author or editor. “It would be awesome to be a book editor for Scholastic!” she exclaims. For now, she’s honing her skills in school and at the Fayetteville Public Library. She has participated in FPL’s Summer Reading Program and KidsRead Book Club in addition to writing clever, playful pieces for The Wanderer and Teen Open Mic Night. Her fascinating heritage spans from the American Revolutionary War all the way to East India. This, combined with the trove of ideas discovered while reading, gives Juniper, whose parents chose her name while playing a word association game, an endless wealth of writing material. “Fun and interesting Indian holiday celebrations [with] yummy Indian food” are an added bonus.

A lifelong resident of Fayetteville, Juniper says her favorite things about her hometown include Wilson Park Pool, the fact that “almost no one is mean,” and the way the city looks at night. When she comes home from a trip, she is always glad to see the familiar lights of the university’s Old Main building sparkling against the sky. Juniper is also a big fan of the new library. In addition to computer access for teens and many more books, she is excited about the design of the new building’s young adult area, which features “really comfortable chairs” styled with teens in mind.

People who know Juniper well say that she always has her nose in a book, but things weren’t always that way. She didn’t like to read until the second grade, when her teacher read aloud to the class from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and from A Wrinkle in Time. “She did all the voices, and I love it when people do that!” Juniper explains. Suddenly, she could imagine the vivid characters in three dimensions, as though she were experiencing their adventures herself. After that, Juniper was hooked.

If you’re looking for a good read, Juniper suggests Lynne Ewing’s Daughters of the Moon series, Once upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris, and Meg Cabot’s The Princess Diaries. She enjoys realistic fiction, and “some fantasy.” When asked whether she has read the latest Artemis Fowl book, she rolls her eyes, laughing, “Oh, my mom reads those.” Sounds like mom is pretty cool, too.