Claire Janosik Griffin's first book, "Nowhere to Run," was recently published.

Griffin, a former Parkland, Emmaus and Macungie school teacher, said she wanted to write a book her students at Montgomery College in Washington, D.C., would be interested in reading.

"That meant it had to be a story about kids like them," she said. "I realized, as I got to know my students, friendship was very important in their lives because many of them did not come from families that gave them a lot of support.

"So, my story is about friendship and the hard choices friendship can force a teen to make."

Divided into 30 chapters, the young adult novel offers readers a look at the importance of teenage friendships, learning to make the right choices in life and what happens if a wrong choice is made.

The main characters Calvin and Deej, have been best friends since daycare.

Calvin is a track star who dreams of winning the 100-meter race in the D.C. track championship at the end of his senior year.

But Deej becomes involved with a local criminal and, somehow, Calvin gets pulled in, too.

"Soon Calvin has to choose between staying loyal to Deej and remaining true to his dream of winning the championship," Griffin said. "It's a story about what friendship means and it's also about making really hard there-is-no-turning-back choices."

Griffin took about seven weeks to write the book.

"Then, I spent four years revising it," she said. "This is my first published novel."

"Nowhere to Run" has been honored with a Kirkus Starred Review.

"It has received positive reviews from Publisher's Weekly, Booklist, School Library Journal, Hornbook, Voice of Youth Advocates," Griffin said. "It has been nominated to be on the American Library Association's 2014 list of quick picks for reluctant readers and was selected as a featured title in D.C.'s 'By the Book Project.'"

Griffin said the reason the book is gaining so much positive attention is kids like it because it's only 111 pages and it's a quick read with sophisticated situations.

"Readers tell me the story is intense and they really identify with Calvin," Griffin said. "Librarians like the book because there isn't a lot of sex or violence, and the language is surprisingly clean.

"Even parents like the book because it is about trying to make smart choices even when life seems to be working against you."

Griffin, who is writing full-time, is working on her second book.

"I have already finished the first draft of my next young adult novel," Griffin said. "It takes Junior, the main female character from the first book, and follows her two years in the future."

"She attends a community college (similar to Montgomery College) and has a boyfriend named Vincent who is charming most of the time but can also be jealous and abusive.

"She has to decide whether to stay in this relationship. Like "Nowhere to Run," my second novel is also about young people making difficult choices. This is something teens have to do all the time.

The new book is called "Where R U?" because Vincent is always texting Junior to find out where she is and whom she's with.

Griffin was raised in Philadelphia and graduated from Friends Central, a Quaker School in Philadelphia in 1968.

She graduated in 1972 with a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster; and in 1975 with a Masters in Art in educational psychology from Columbia.

In 1980, she received a teaching certificate from Lehigh University.

In the early 1980s, she taught fourth grade at Lincoln School in Emmaus and fifth grade at Shoemaker School in Macungie.

She then took time off to start a family and moved to California where she taught preschool for three years.

The family moved back to the Lehigh Valley where she taught in the Title 1 program at Fogelsville Elementary for five years.

"Then, I taught gifted students for three years at Parkway Manor, and at Orefield and Springhouse middle schools," Griffin said. "I moved to Washington, D.C., where my husband, John, ran National Geographic Magazine and I taught writing for six years at Montgomery College, a community college in the D.C. suburbs."

Griffin and her husband of 37 years have lived Brooklyn, N.Y. for the past two years.

They have two adult children Elizabeth, a graduate of Emmaus High School, and Wilson, who completed high school in D.C..

Both of them live in Brooklyn and work in Manhattan.

For information about Griffin or to schedule a school visit, log on to clairejgriffin.com.