Since then, the novel has been translated into twenty languages for publication in more than thirty countries and was chosen among the Best Books for Young Adults in 2001 by the American Library Association.

[2] When twelve-year-old Trevor McKinney begins seventh grade in Atascadero, California, his social studies teacher, Reuben St Clair, gives the class an assignment to devise and put into action a plan that will change the world for the better.

Instead of the mother being a down-and-out recovering alcoholic in Las Vegas, Nevada, the original story was based in Atascadero, California, a city not far from where Catherine Ryan Hyde resides.

The teacher's burns, instead of being inflicted as a heinous crime by his father, are the result of napalm wounds suffered during service presumably during the Vietnam War.

Finally, the character Eugene Simonet (whose original name was Reuben St. Clair) was African-American in the novel; however, in the film, he was portrayed by Kevin Spacey.