Emotional Rollercoasters with Alison Green Myers

Alison Green Myers, author of This Way to Happy (Dutton Books for Young Readers), joins Matthew to talk about the inconsistent upbringings and emotional rollercoasters.

Listen along:

About the book: This Way to Happy by Alison Green Myers. Published by Dutton Books for Young Readers.

From Schneider Family Book Award winner Alison Green Myers comes a heartwarming middle grade novel about loss, friendship, and the many paths we create to happiness.

Growing up at her grandparents' amusement park, Reilly Rhoades spent her life in the glow of bright lights, hard work, and sweet treats. That is until her beloved grandfather died. With Grandpa gone now, the sweetness of the park disappears, and the pride Reilly had for her family’s legacy grows bitter.

Without Grandpa, Reilly’s family fights to keep the park going—spreading happiness to others as they struggle to find it themselves. The strain causes one problem after another to erupt, until the Rhoades family, and their amusement park, comes apart at the seams.

As past traditions clash with today's realities, a new friendship splashes into Reilly’s universe. With epic advice, wild adventures, and a plan (or twenty) for tackling life’s twists and turns, Reilly Rhoades discovers that happiness doesn’t mean you have to choose between the past and the future—sometimes building a bridge connects all the best parts of you!

This Way to Happy is a rollercoaster ride that reminds readers even in the midst of life’s most challenging turns, happiness can be found just around the corner.

More:

Visit Alison Green Myers online at alisongreenmyers.com 

Other helpful links:

• Alison Green Myers at the Highlights Foundation

• Summer Camp for Writers and Illustrators: Session One! - Our Summer Camp is a not-to-be-missed experience with 1:1 mentorship, educational and inspirational keynotes, breakout sessions in your chosen track, a community of fellow creatives, time to create, and lots of fun!

Learn more about the Highlights Foundation and their upcoming programs by visiting www.highlightsfoundation.org. 

Transcript:

NOTE: Transcript created by Descript. I've attempted to clean up any typos, grammatical errors, and formatting errors where possible.

Matthew: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Children’s Book Podcast, where we celebrate the power of storytelling to reflect our world, expand our perspectives, and foster connections between readers of all ages. Brought to you in partnership with the Highlights Foundation, positively impacting kids by amplifying the voices of storytellers who inform, educate, and inspire children to become their best selves.

I’m your host, Matthew Winner—teacher, librarian, writer, and a fan of kids.

Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can hear The Children’s Book Podcast early and ad-free by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. Click the banner on your podcast app at any time.

Today, I’m joined by Alison Green Myers, a Schneider Family Book Award–winning author, to talk about their newest middle grade novel, This Way to Happy (Dutton Books for Young Readers).

At the heart of This Way to Happy is Reilly Rhoades, a kid who has grown up surrounded by the lights, sounds, and sugary delights of her grandparents’ amusement park. It’s a place built on joy—and on family. But when Reilly’s beloved grandfather dies, everything changes. The park no longer feels magical, and the grief her family carries begins to fracture both their relationships and the legacy they’re trying to protect.

As Reilly’s family struggles to keep the park alive, she’s forced to navigate loss, uncertainty, and the tension between honoring the past and making room for what comes next. Along the way, an unexpected friendship brings new perspective, humor, and heart—and helps Reilly begin to understand that happiness isn’t a single destination. Sometimes, it’s something we build, piece by piece, by connecting who we were with who we’re becoming.

Told with warmth, empathy, and deep emotional honesty, This Way to Happy is a story about grief, resilience, and the many paths we can take toward healing. It’s also a reminder that even when life feels unsteady, joy can still be found—sometimes just around the corner.

Let’s begin with a brief clip from the audiobook of This Way to Happy.

Audiobook: Up until last summer, my grandpa John whittled the sticks for each and every candied apple. Probably imagining each and every visitor with a handmade souvenir really most ended up in the trash or near the trash, depending on the type of park goer. We never told grandpa that his hard work might not be worth it.

In the end, we buy them in bulk. Now, the sticks for the apples, mom says it's better this way, more fiscally [00:03:00] responsible. If grandpa heard her use those words, he'd scrunch his face like the apples had gone rotten. He was a face scrunch. Like me,

Matthew: I have known Alison ever since my first visit to the Highlights Foundation, some 10 years ago. Or perhaps, we’ve known each other even before that. Alison and I share many connections, but the one at the forefront of this conversation is our connection to mental health matters. They say something toward the end of our interview that is an all too familiar thought, and it also sums up the emotional beats of their latest book really well. That is, “It isn’t my fault, but it somehow feels like my fault.” 

Goodness, you are in good hands for this conversation! 

Please welcome Alison Green Myers to the podcast.[00:04:00] 

Alison: My name is Allison Green Myers. You can call me Al. I typically make that joke, but we're only a subset of people. I know the song I'm referring to. I'm the author of Birdwell Soar and This Way to Happy. 

Matthew: Welcome. 

Alison: Thanks. 

Matthew: Welcome, friend. Welcome to a different conversation for us because Yes as I've, as and as I've talked to you about before you've previously been on this show.

As a representative of the highlights foundation. That's right. And the work we now are doing together through that foundation. But to have you on as an author is quite special for me, especially because I've come to know you as much as I've come to know you through the foundation. But to know you that way and then to hear your voice as this book was read to me, I listened on audio was really big and Chen.

I know 

Alison: [00:05:00] the narrator. I know I have been blessed to the last books. Tell me you hand selected 

Matthew: that narrator. I did, 

Alison: and I hand selected that narrator. And the last one, Jamie King for the, for a virtual store. I they send you the like samples that they're thinking about and. Okay. I was thinking, and, can, you can send it off and then you never know what's gonna happen.

Okay. But I was floored. I was like beside myself. Anyway, sorry to interrupt you. 

Matthew: I am so glad you said that because we're going to be playing a clip from the audio book. Okay. And it looks like we found a great place to put it. Before we go too deep into this, Allison, why don't you share a brief book talk of this way to happy for any of us readers that haven't encountered it yet?

Alison: Okay. Okay, so I'll, I'm gonna preface this whole entire interaction that we have, Matthew, by the fact that I am the world's biggest rambler. But eventually I get [00:06:00] back to the thing, and what I found really helps people is if I tell them where I'm going sometimes, and then that's like the helpful nugget.

So to anybody who's listening, who hasn't. Spent time with me outside of work. Allison, you should know I'm a big rambler and my thoughts are all over the place, but eventually they get where they're going. I liken it to when I go hiking with my family, they're very far in front of me, but I'm like, don't worry, I'm still gonna finish.

Like I'm still gonna get there. I'm gonna. Whatever. So anyway book talk wise, I'm not great at them because of those reasons. I'm a rambler and so when I get in a situation, I, it's hard for me. And yet when I'm in a situation with a bunch of kids, I'm like, oh, let's find out what you're into, because that's the best way to book talk.

It's if I know that I'm talking to a group of kids from. Pennsylvania and I have an inkling that maybe they've been to can [00:07:00] Knoebels Grove. I would start the book, talk with the Kids by being like can Nobles, right? And then I'd be like, yeah. And I'll be like, oh man, this book, it's like, what if this took place at Knoebels?

And right before the summer before it was supposed to open, the grandfather who owns the amusement park passes away and this family is trying to put on, you've been there, right? Like the lights and the sounds. Everything is thought of for the people interacting in the space. But what if the family behind all that is really struggling to get through opening the amusement park at that time?

And it's okay, so that's me talking to my fourth graders about it, who I think happened to maybe be in Pennsylvania. I was at the Keystone State literacy Association event like, two weeks ago, and Cordelia Jensen, who you know, and I we're presenting, we were presenting emotional rollercoasters in middle grade, and she and I were like getting set up beforehand.

And it was like, [00:08:00] isn't it so much easier to talk to teachers about your book? And I was like, I know, right? Because sometimes when I'm at a book festival and people come in front of me and they're like what's your book about? I can't be like, I don't know, dancing pandas. It's not, it's like shorthand.

Oh, there's a really messy family. There's recovery. So then there's all these emotions. But when you talk to, like a teacher comes across and it's yeah, I know the word happy is in the title, but it's a book about grief. And they're like, totally get it. No, my readers for that. And for me, the book talk depends on the audience.

I guess that's the point I'm trying to get. 

Matthew: I love it to is 

Alison: I don't know. So who, whomever is listening. Just let me know what you like a little bit. I would love to hand sell you the book in any capacity that might work.[00:09:00] 

Matthew: I want to talk about the Pennsylvania of this whole thing. Okay. But as I think, as 'cause we've talked about it highlights foundation is right near my grandparents' house. They I worked at their hardware store. Mountaintop pa 

Alison: Yeah. 

Matthew: My entire childhood. And there's a. As much as I was thinking about can nobles and I was thinking about the North Pole pole that is always poll at can nobles and all the things I go to can nobles every year.

It's something that now I've gotten to bring my children to. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah. There also [00:10:00] was. An amusement park that closed down while I was a kid. While I was still in pa, up there in the Poconos somewhere, while my parents were driving us around everywhere. So I can't picture where it was other than it was somewhere from mountaintop to Williamsport, pa.

'cause I lived in Williamsport, pa. And I remember that it had a rollercoaster and then we went there one time. Over one summer somewhere my grandparents took me. There must've been, 'cause I used to, again, work at the hardware store and so much of this story brought me to there because of the size of a, a family being able to run the thing. But but yeah. 

Alison: You know what would make the best story is if right now I. Knew exactly the amusement park you were talking about. No, you don't 

Matthew: need to because look how beautiful it is for me to be able to No, you're so happy. Project onto it. And that's yeah.

Sort of this wonderful thing. I'm a person that tends to believe that amusement parks are pretty magical, especially if you have ones like Can Nobles Grove, which [00:11:00] those of you not in PA is a. Is maybe one of the last standing amusement parks. That's free admission. You just buy tickets to go on rides.

Or you can on weekends buy a pass to ride rides. Can I 

Alison: just say really quickly though, and what I know that there's a question probably coming and I'm, yeah. I apologize for interrupting so much. But so what, as I was working on this book we could go on a side adventure, we could do a side quest, Matthew.

Yeah. And talk about writing this book. I won't do that with you, but. At one point, my editor sent me a link to a place called Knoebels Grove, and he was like, so I was just reading your pages and started to look up some stuff on the internet. Are you aware of this place? Oh, that's awesome. And so then I sent him a screenshot because I had a old book of tickets from Knoebels Grove?

Yeah. Hanging on my computer screen as I was writing this book. And I was like, I'm definitely aware of this place. But I was just like, okay, good. There was enough. Respect and love paid to this place that, from the [00:12:00] outside, somebody who hadn't been there could see it too. 

Matthew: So where we were, where I was going with the question.

I'm so glad you picked up on that was really just, is that where it started? Is there some love of this location that has just been in your head and felt like this is gonna be the right setting to place Riley Rhodes and their family on top of. 

Alison: Yeah. Actually so I in the author's note I allude to this a little bit, but when I was when I was Riley's age I, and anybody who read my first book and made it to the author's note in there too, like my upbringing was inconsistent.

Okay. And, so I had this family, I was 12. They had a traveling carnival and they were like, you will come with us. And that was. The greatest escape, it was amazing. And so I have always been trying to write a book for them. Oh, and [00:13:00] I, as much as I tried to write this carnival book, like a traveling carnival book, I wrote it as a Ya shout out to Cory McCarthy.

He was probably the first person that I ever let even see an inkling of that carnival book. And it was just a love story set on a traveling carnival with these. Group of teenagers, but I couldn't get the book. And then I was like, what if I just. What if I just hold tight in one place? Yeah. Okay. And one of the places that we would go at the end of the season can, Nobles would literally have this fall festival.

And because they had closed down so much of their stuff, they would invite in these small carnivals so that you could put on some stuff and they didn't have to open up everything. And so people were selling like pumpkin themed stuff and whatever, and we would go. And so I was like, okay. I've worked that spot.

I know it enough to [00:14:00] navigate kind of in it as a worker, and I think I can bring my carnival to this specific amusement park. And so that's how it ended up there. 

Matthew: As an author, it's interesting to know that I can't guess at how many years you'll tell me how many years it was that you were with this story, but that you had to follow this path of different.

Incarnations of this story in order to to have pieces click in place.

Alison: Yeah, I think about that a lot too. Matthew I love that you said that I am so much about the, I'm always thinking about the way that our brain is processing all of the stuff. It's like beyond, sometimes I. I stop and literally think about the brain working and I am.

Why? What? It's like thinking about the sky staying up in the sky. I don't know, but it's like, for me, a story is just. Clicking through different [00:15:00] parts of my brain until a little magnet and it like all comes together and then, it's okay, now I have somewhere to go with it and I will write it and write it again in different ways.

Like this book was in third person and direct to reader. So when I first turned this manuscript over to my editor, it was in third person moving forward. But then. Interspersed were these chapters where someone on the carnival, someone at the amusement park was calling out because there were callers on the carnival and you were like trying to draw people in.

And I really was trying to stand up for that and explain my editors, Andrew Carr. And I was trying to explain to Andrew listen Andrew, this is what happens on a carnival. And he's Uhhuh. He at one point asked me if he could see my satellite documents and I was like. I don't know what that means.

Surely you can't possibly mean my ramblings in my journal. Oh, and pictures of things that, things meaning from 

Matthew: like high above. 

Alison: [00:16:00] High above. What is it that was influencing you as this was coming together? And I was like he surely does not want all of this. And so I am like scanning pages of my journal, sending clips that I have taken screenshots of various things.

Turns out like that's just, that's, he is a clicker in place in the brain too. Like he can talk to me about duct tape. We talked about duct tape on a phone call once. There's no duct tape, but there's a scene in the book where they're talking about the tower slide. 

Matthew: Yes. 

Alison: And there's a shim. And if you just push this in here and you push that in there, it's stable enough to get on it.

And that's what he was talking about. And that was the thing that unlocked a little bit more of this grandfather's character. But Andrew is a, this has got a click in place and here's in my brain the click, but it's not probably how you're gonna solve it. So I like, you know that you said that. I think that's what story [00:17:00] does for me.

I don't, it's not streamlined. It's not. Wow. I wish that I, you've heard those, the authors you've had them on here. I've listened to your podcast where they're like, and then the character speaks to me about the next thing that we need to do, and I'm like, my characters are like, what are you doing?

Oh, it's so different. What's going on up there? 

Matthew: Alison, I was I was grateful to hear that you say that you write. It out that you are a person that writes through things. 'cause I think there are also authors, there's no one way, but there are also authors that spend a lot of time in, maybe in pre-writing.

I'm imagining, I'm trying to walk through the story in my head until it clicks with enough clarity for me to write it. There are many ways to, to the same. Not the same end result, but the same end result of getting something down and finding what the story is. And it sounds like you're also affirming that a good editor for you at least is an essential part of that step to help.

Oh my gosh, yeah. Have someone be able to [00:18:00] listen in a way that is not your own head listening to you, but someone outside of that space listening. 

Alison: Yeah, definitely. And I think you did a podcast with InSAR Kani, right? Did you talk to InSAR? Don't believe so. She's a ya author. Anyway, one of the thing I love when InSAR says this is she talks about the way that she cooks and she talks about the way that one of her kids cooks.

Yeah. And at the end they can still have dinner. And I think about that an awful lot in my house. It's like I am. A disaster in the kitchen and you know that we might have chili 18 times during our life, but they're never gonna taste the same because I never put the same thing in it at all. Whereas my kid who has recently really gotten into cooking and baking is very meticulous follows everything to the letter. This is how it has to be and whatever. And then it's like at the end, we're both eating something. It's just the journey to get there was different. And that to me is [00:19:00] writing, and especially being around a lot of writers, you yourself being a writer and talking to writers all the time.

Yeah. And you're like, oh, so you do it like that and you do it like that, and we're all just trying to. Pick at it and be like, maybe it would be easier if I tried it that way. Could it be easier if I did it this way? And it's

Matthew: no, it gives you a try though, doesn't it? And that's important.

Sure. I love the quest of understanding myself better. So hearing all the different ways people try, allow me to go. I wonder if that would be something that serves me well, given the skills and personality and whatever that I have. I wanna ask you about. This beautiful alliterative name that you have, RI Rhodes.

Because let me just tell you a friend that we both have, I think we both have Kate Camillo would be like, oh yeah, that's a name. Katie Camillo. I know Kate. No, 

Alison: Kate. Kate and I are not friends, but I, Kate's a friend 

Matthew: of the show. We're not like, we're not like a texting universe.

But but I know Kate loves a good name and Ri Roosevelt was like, holy cow. That's a good name. You [00:20:00] shared. You distinguish that you're not a person that like the character comes, finds you. When I ask that question of how you met or found out or discovered Riley Rhodes, what I'm more asking is did you start with character or did you start somewhere else?

You've built a really beautiful cast here. Allison. I love your cast. I listen on audio. I don't know the book in front of me to remember everybody's name. Yeah. Boy do I remember every relationship. Oh, and that's a beautiful thing. I also think, and we'll talk about the friend in a minute, but I think the friend that comes, that is the person that becomes the friend.

Yeah. That ri meets and ends up spending some significant time with, 'cause they're at the campground for a chunk. You write that character really well. I was like, Ooh, ooh, Allison is writing, is recording a kid and typing it down. Is transcribing a kid? I. Felt such love and affection toward you, Allison.

Aw. Because of the way you wrote Riley and specifically the two [00:21:00] other main kids. The cousin. What's the cousin's name? Yes. Nick. Nick. And what's the friend that comes? 

Alison: Alex with the purple hair. You probably know. I know. Alex, wait a second. I know Alex. 

Matthew: Ooh. The way you wrote Nick and Alex and Ri was exceptional.

Allison. Oh, thank you. I'm so grateful. I feel privileged to read a story you wrote after knowing how you love the people in your life. It was really cool to hear how you write kids. It was just what I was not, it was not surprising. And I mean that in Oh, that's so sweet. That's so nice. How did you form did you write story as you're drafting, did you like, oh, I need another kid.

Ri needs a kid to work from? How did you build the cast, is the way I'm gonna ask that question. Okay. 

Alison: Okay. How did I build the cast? I think, i, okay, so this is gonna seem strange, but like [00:22:00] I think there's a symbolism that will come to me first when it comes to a story. If I know that I want to write about grief, let's say, and this, I knew my book was going to be about grief I was experiencing.

An abundance of grief. And that is a, that is something that I think my readers know about. And so I knew I wanted to write about it, but what's my take on grief? And I think I can, you and I know each other well enough that what is somebody who cycles through clinical depression and what is their relationship with grief like, right?

Correct. But I don't wanna write it as an adult. And so what does that look like as a child? I was a child, like I know enough to be able to say, I've gotta take the adult out of the equation. And how does that show up for a kid? It shows up for a kid in a lot of different ways, but there's a repeating thing that happens and I knew I was gonna write about where it's it isn't my fault.

[00:23:00] It feels like my fault. That internal feeling of everything somehow being connected to your instability to read a situation, right? And that's what happens when you are on shaky ground. You can't read the situation. So what does grief look like when you can't read the situation? And there are moments of big things and small things in this book where RI is saying.

I'm smart enough to know that this can't possibly be my fault, but there's a feeling on the inside I can't name, and all it is, or shame or something, so that to me, I knew that I had that character who was going to be navigating this piece. And I'll tell you, like again, I write many versions of a book where I might know these different things.

So if I know about. The, it's a book about grief. It's a book about grief with this very specific character's point of view. [00:24:00] It's a book about grief with this very specific character's point of view. What am I trying to get them to? The obvious answer from grief would be happiness. But I don't think, I don't work in a sense where it's like A leads to B and there's a spectrum of what happiness is, and I want every character in this book to be able to show us what their pathway looks like, and so I wanted grandma to have that. Yeah, that was a big piece for me. I wanted at every generation to be able to say what that looks like. I want somebody like mom who is in recovery to be like, I can feel myself slipping when I feel myself slipping.

I get back to meetings and this is what happens. I wanted. Healthy queer relationships from adults, which are in all of my books. Like I wanted that piece to be in there. So do I know what the cast is? 'Cause I filled the cast with my cast, like these people are coming in. But the, one of the first versions I, it wasn't the sec, it wasn't the direct of the reader version, it was another one that I sent [00:25:00] to Andrew and he wrote back and he was like.

Remember being a book for middle graders. We want some joy, we want some hope. And there wasn't a lot of that in there 'cause there wasn't a lot of that inside me. Ah. And I had to get to know that character, Alex Better. Okay. And so then I started to think about who is the person in my life who. Is really that sounding board, that joy board that I have an opinion about everything and we can get through this.

And that's my friend Alex. And so we, I was just like in those small situations, like when we're inside. The inside of that apple stand in the middle of the amusement park. I was like, if I was in this apple stand, this is the conversation that we would be having, at a middle grade, level.

So that's long story short, and not that every one person is like a one to one correspondence, I think, that like the characters are all made up of I see my friend Dennis in Alex, I see my friend Linda in Barnett. I see my friend Bobby in Barnett. I see. My friend [00:26:00] Carol in Barnett.

So everybody's made up of a mishmash of things and then also whatever's going on inside the brain too. 

Matthew: It's a beautiful mapping. And I also think about again, 'cause you and I do short sort of share overlaps in, in mental health, I think about that to me the opposite of grief or grieving might be security.

And that's coming from where I'm coming from. Stability. Yeah. Security. I recognized I saw it my whole life. Yeah. And maybe I seek to be that in other people, perhaps. And so maybe that's why I crafted this question for you next because as much as everyone is finding their way to happy in your book, to me, they're also finding their way to security.

Security and self security and other relationships, stability. I saw so many bridges in your book. And some of those bridges were between generations, a apart grandparents and children parents and children, sisters [00:27:00] friends family that isn't with us, that we live apart from for a time.

But as that thought came to me, I also thought Allison's a person that I know to be a bridge builder. And I'm grateful for that. I wonder. As you just said, you were writing your grief in this book. I wonder if you also noticed that you were writing your bridge building in this book.

Do you see this as when the editor was asking you for more joy, hope, whatever words you just told me. Are you able to recognize this is big picture author question, are you able to recognize the way that perhaps I do and other people do that? That also came from in you?

Alison: Beautiful question one, isn't it interesting that I see happiness and stability as being. So close to each other on the [00:28:00] color wheel, right? 

And that's wonderful. That's it's so interesting that's what it could be for someone. 'cause again, it's all different. The bridge piece, I will tell you like, first of all, I'm not sure that I can be introspective enough this, say that piece.

I will say what I recognized in that was I wrote everything but a bridge. For this book, I wrote the Ski Lift. I wrote The Lazy River. I wanted to talk about life being a combination of rollercoasters and lazy rivers. Yeah. There's this slow quiet, and then there's this big out loud. I was looking for those kind of things.

I was writing it and writing it, but the obvious answer was right in front of me. The whole time. The simplest answer was in front of me the whole time. The way that Alex and RI could truly build a relationship together was by building something together the way, like it took a lot of versions. I don't think theme necessarily comes out.

The gate, like [00:29:00] as a writer, I think it's oh, look what I did there. Oh, isn't that interesting? Or, oh, I could polish that up a little bit more. Oh, what if this was laid out in this part and this was laid out in this part, and what does a bridge have to do with things? But I'll tell you, like once it was like, I'm gonna write about a bridge.

All I could think about was Padma, because I was like. Has already written the bridge home. How dare I put a bridge in another book? Oh no. That's how I took, it was like. Because I adore her and I adore everything that she writes and whatever, but it's not like we can all write about our bridges and our whatever and they're all very, it's different.

And if she saw any inclination of oh, Allison has a book with a bridge, so do I. My runneth over I would be overjoyed if that was something that she saw as an homage to her because I love her and I think the bridge it is I love that you pointed it out in all those places.

That is where I wanted to [00:30:00] see it in the book and in life. I asked the other day I was. A bookstore event and I asked people to just make a quick list. I passed out journals. I said, make a quick list of the bridges in your life. People, animals, places, things, and everybody could get to writing right away.

And I was like, oh, world read aloud day. It's a quick write. It's like the, the heart and soul of this book, and I wanna hear what other people's bridges are because somebody at the bookstore event shared about their dog, and their dog had just passed away. And it was like, this dog let me know how much and how deeply I could care about someone else.

So the point that they wanted to get to was this new knowledge about themself. And like different things like that. 

Matthew: It's a terrific motif. It's great. Yeah, it's fantastic. We're running out of time. Let me ask you briefly about your role at highlights and Okay. How, in this many years, if at all, it's impacted your [00:31:00] writing through highlights, through yourself, through whatever.

I, I also am a person that I don't shy away from knowing that all the people that I meet have fingerprints all over me. They impact everything that I do. How is it for you? Allison? Yeah, 

Alison: I think the highlights foundation has changed my life. Full stop. And it's the people, from the beginning, I went as a student from interacting with Kemp Brown in the kitchen of the farmhouse all the way up until, yesterday I was on the phone with someone talking about this incredible storyteller fellowship that we're getting ready to launch.

The people are. It's unbelievable and the people are in all capacities, including all the stories that I get to read of people, like I get a chance to. That's 

Matthew: true too. 

Alison: Somebody has a. An [00:32:00] experience where, you know they just wanna

send along something that they created or something that they wrote while they were there, and I get to read that and then those characters get to live in my head too.

I that, that's very much a part of it. So I don't, I often I don't write the highlights foundation. I don't go to Boyd Mills and write, it's not my place to write.

But it is my place to be inspired by writers and storytellers. For sure. 

Matthew: Thank you for sharing that. I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful these for these stories and I'm especially grateful having talked about even if so, briefly having talked about Riley and Nick and Alex, I'm grateful to ask you this question 'cause I know that you've met lots of Riley's and Nicks and Alex's, so Allison, to close our time together, I will see a library full of children tomorrow morning.

Is there a message I can bring to them from you? [00:33:00] 

Alison: Yes, please do. I would say, okay, I'm gonna do two parts here, just like my audience. So for readers, whoever the readers are, there's just no stories without a reader. You are the most important person in the entire loop. And I would say humans, we're all humans.

We are part of this great big loop and for the kids. I hope that they can find people who recognize that who recognize how important they are in this great big. Human loop this interaction. And I hope that they can find spaces and people who let them know that their voice matters, that they're a part of all this.

And and lean into those people because will show their [00:34:00] value and show their worth.