I recently traveled to Longwood University in Virginia where I spoke to one of the university’s young adult classes. It was a wonderful experience. Dr. Miskec had invited me earlier this year to be a part of her final exam for one of her classes. It turns out, a (marvelous) young lady had read my book and her mother had informed Dr. Miskec how much she had liked it. I immediately jumped on board and I am very happy I did. I’ve spoken to a handful of classes since being published, but never a college one. To be surrounded by adults who (1) had read the book, (2) seemed to have truly enjoyed the book, and (3) were merrily discussing the aspects of the book were things that I had never experienced before.
Dr. Miskec’s class was studying young adult fiction and my novel, The Unicorn Girl, was part of their syllabus. I believe it was the last book they read for the semester and part of their final exam was to discuss the book in course terminology to me.
The questions they asked were truly fabulous and I hope I did some justice in answering them. (I often feel like I’m a blundering fool when answering questions about my novels, but I think I did okay—Dr. Miskec had only wonderful things to say to me afterwards). 
One of my favorite points (and there were many) that was discussed was something called ironic narrative. In young adult fiction, it is mostly dominated by the first-person narrative. The odd thing about this is that most authors of young adult fiction are adults, hence the irony. What the students pointed out was that The Unicorn Girl is one of the few exceptions. I wrote a story as a teenager, for teenagers, through the eyes of a teenager. I’m not exactly sure what you would call that, but it makes the novel feel even more special to me than it already is. I’ll never be able to write another like it. I’ve now moved into that ironic narrative category—an adult who writes through the eyes of children.
Thank you, thank you Dr. Miskec! I was honored to be a part of your class. (I hope they wrote some excellent finals). 
“The Irony of Narration in the Young Adult Novel” is an excellent article by my pal Mike Cadden. Read it all if you are interested: http://www.longwood.edu/staff/miskecjm/irony.pdf