RAR #259: Books Take You Places

Sarah Mackenzie (00:00): Have you ever had the experience of reading a book and feeling like you've actually been to that place? This happens to me all the time. One time in particular, I remember I was standing in line at an amusement park waiting to go on a roller coaster, which means it was a good day because I love roller coasters. And I was chatting with the couple that was standing in front of me and they said that they were visiting the amusement park from their home in Maine. And just about then I about started to say, "Oh, I was just in Maine." I realized, no, no, you have never been really to Maine. What had happened is I had just finished reading a historical fiction novel set in Maine, so it felt like I was there, and that's the power of books. Books have the ability to take us places. (01:08): Welcome to the Read-Aloud Revival podcast, the show that helps you make meaningful and lasting connections with your kids through books. I'm your host, Sarah Mackenzie. One of the things I love about books is this immersive ability to make us feel like we're traveling to new places, helping us see different places of the world we've never seen before, and experienced settings that are unlike whatever we normally live with. I love that books not only help us imagine that we've been to places, but also how books can enhance the actual travels that we take, because not only do I love traveling through books, I also just love traveling, and so then I love bringing books or prepping for those travels with books. We're going to talk all about it today. (01:51): I invited RAR's premium coordinator, Leilani Curtis onto the show, and we're going to talk about how books can take us places and we're going to also share a very new fun book list we've been working on. If you are listening to this podcast, you should know it's also a video on YouTube, so you can go to readaloudrevival.com/video if you'd like to watch it, rather than listen. Leilani, welcome back to this side of the Read-Aloud Revival podcast. Leilani Curtis (02:18): Hi Sarah, thanks for having me back. Sarah Mackenzie (02:21): Oh, it's always so much fun to chat with you here and always crazy fun to make book lists with you. But Leilani, why don't you tell everybody a little bit about your family and your work here? Leilani Curtis (02:30): So I'm the premium coordinator, which basically means I just get to work with all of the amazing content that we are having so much fun putting together. That includes our book lists and I think the books might be mine and Sarah's favorite thing to talk about. We are constantly like, have you seen this? Have you read this? And it's so much fun. My husband and I live in North Carolina. We have six kids, four girls and two boys. They are from ages 11 to 1, so it's a fun, busy season, and yeah, we've been homeschooling since my oldest was in kindergarten and I love it more every year. Sarah Mackenzie (03:07): Awesome. And if you're new here, I'm Sarah Mackenzie and I've got six kids as well, three adults, young adults all off at college and grad school and three still homeschooling who are 12, 11 and 11. And two of my favorite things in the whole world are travel and books. So I have been excited about this conversation since we first came up with the idea to have it, so. Leilani Curtis (03:28): Yes, this is going to be so much fun. Sarah Mackenzie (03:30): Well, what do you think it is? I feel like we should talk maybe about what it is about books in particular that make them such a powerful tool for travel, either travel in our imagination like me feeling like I had been to Maine, right? Or travel in real life to enhance our real life travel. So what is it, what do you think it is about books that lends itself to this in particular? Leilani Curtis (03:54): Yeah, I think that we spend time in books and we spend time as families together in books, and so there's an opportunity for us to learn from the research of authors or illustrators and to have those conversations with one another on what we're reading. I think that's a big starting point. There's a quote that you really love, Sarah, about books and traveling. I wonder if you want to share that one. Sarah Mackenzie (04:20): Oh, well, I mean if you're going to give me an opportunity to quote Emily Dickinson, I would be happy to. Is that the one you're talking about? Leilani Curtis (04:26): Yes. Sarah Mackenzie (04:27): Of course. There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away. I'm always angling for a good opportunity to quote an Emily Dickinson poem. Of course, we're like, what's a frigate? A frigate is a boat. So in the beginning of this poem, Emily Dickinson is saying there is nothing like a book to help us travel, so there is no frigate, like a book to take us lands away. Leilani Curtis (04:49): Yes, yes. I love that a frigate or a boat also just implies at least as book readers a sense of adventure, and I think that's so much what these books are doing when they help us to go new places. Sarah Mackenzie (05:01): Yeah, yeah, it's true. Even actually, I was just thinking on the cover of my book, the Read-Aloud family, we have a mother and her child traveling on a book. I think of that poem when I see it. It's not really a boat, but it could be. Leilani Curtis (05:14): I mean, it's flying and I think there's multiple ways to fly. I love that. Sarah Mackenzie (05:18): That's true. I feel like who among us really has read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and not felt like we've been to Narnia, right? Or has read Little House on the Prairie, you feel like you're on the dusty hot prairie with Laura Ingalls. That you're walking down Klickitat Street if you're reading Ramona Quimby, right? Books are immersive. They really lend that sense of place so that when we finished with a book, we feel like we've been to the place we've just been reading about. Leilani Curtis (05:47): Yeah. We so often hear that phrase, that a well-written book, it shows rather than tells. And so to show us well, it's usually engaging our senses and so exactly as you were just bringing up entering Narnia, if you enter Narnia through the wardrobe and you just remember how C.S. Lewis is describing the feel of the fur coats and then suddenly you're feeling these trees and a sense of cold and you hear some crunching, he's engaging all of that, and so immediately as you said that, I was like, "Yes, I feel like I know exactly that entry point." Because it was such a rich description that, again, engages just all of your senses. Sarah Mackenzie (06:27): I think in some ways the important thing to think about when it comes to books that take us places are the stories because the textbook doesn't really do this, right? A story gives us context. So I remember when we went to Boston, we sat in front of the Old North Church that has the lanterns, one of by land two if by sea that would be lit that are all, they're described so well in Paul Revere's Ride. I read Paul Revere's Ride to the kids sitting in front of Old North Church and it felt like a place we had been before, not recently like maybe in 1775 or something, because that's, of course, what we were reading about. (07:04): We were reading about the Old North Church in 1775. And when we got there it didn't feel like, "Whoa, what is this place?" It felt like, "Of course, this is what it's like." You had this sense of almost like coming home or coming to a place that you've been before, and I think it's because a story in particular paints pictures of people working and living and having hardships and joys in these places. So it's not just like we're reading about the Eiffel Tower, we're reading about the Tower of London. We're actually reading stories that are set there so it comes to life before us because of the story that we've read. So it gives us context. (07:43): I just think it brings it to life on a different level than if we were just reading a nonfiction book that was straightforward about this place. This is what the Tower of London has seen and what has happened there. Very different than if you're reading a story set in a place where their characters are doing things at the Tower of London. Right? Leilani Curtis (08:00): Yeah. It makes those facts mean something. Like, what does it mean for the temperature to be this way or the weather to be this way or the view or what it takes to travel in a certain area. I think, yeah, all of that makes those facts that can be interesting mean something in that story, for sure. I'd love to hear more about your Boston trip and how books just really lent themselves to your experience there with your family. Sarah Mackenzie (08:27): Oh my gosh, it was so amazing. It was so fun. So we planned a family trip to Boston and knowing that we were going to be going, I chose some books to read ahead of time. We read Johnny Tremain, we read Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Paul Revere's Ride. Just a ton of American Revolution, historical fiction is really what we did, and then we went to Boston and it was incredible. We went and saw the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum. Oh my gosh. Go. I've been three times. I love it. Leilani Curtis (08:57): Oh, have you really? Sarah Mackenzie (08:58): Yeah. It's one of those places where the docents are all in character, in costume, and everybody's in character. I mean, maybe when I'm retired, I'll work there and be a docent. Leilani Curtis (09:09): For sure. Sarah Mackenzie (09:10): It'd be like a dream job. We went and visited Paul Revere's house. You can walk through it and see all the bedrooms and things in there. It's so interesting how small the houses were then. Old North Church, like I said, we actually, I brought the picture book copy we had of Paul Revere's Ride and we read it sitting outside of Old North Church. In fact, if I can find that photo, I'll put it in the show notes because I think I have a photo of that happening. Leilani Curtis (09:36): That's so cool. Sarah Mackenzie (09:37): We went and visited Old Ironsides. And again, it was like all of these things would've been amazing if we hadn't read about them. The kids would've learned lots of things. They would've taken lots of things from that trip, but because it felt like some place we had just spent so much time walking down these very streets and seeing history come to life through them, it was so meaningful. On that same trip, we also took a little detour to Concord where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women, and actually my older kids had read Little Women and the younger kids and I had watched the movie, so everybody recognized it because if you see, especially the newer version of Little Women, it's basically an exact replica of the house. So you're walking through this house like, "Oh my gosh, we have been here before." You've had experiences too, I think? Leilani Curtis (10:25): Yeah. So last summer, well, a couple of years ago actually, my girls and I read Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry. It was such an enjoyable read for us. I have a couple of just big horse lovers in my family, so we were prone to enjoy the story anyways, but what I didn't realize until we started reading and then finished the book and sent us down a couple of rabbit trails was that it's actually based off of a tradition that's held on Chincoteague and Assateague Islands on the East Coast, and it still happens every year, and the book, if you haven't read Misty before, it's based off of a real pony named Misty and the Beebe family who raised her on their ranch. And the book starts off, it's super exciting. It starts off with the legend of how the Wild Ponies came to that area in the first place. (11:13): There are still wild ponies there. They were supposedly on a Spanish ship that was shipwrecked. I live more on the coastal side of North Carolina and we have some really fascinating just ship and pirate lore out here, and so this is kind of a part of that. Apparently, those ponies swam as shore and have remained wild ever since. Every year, the fire department of Chincoteague Island will round them up for vet checks and to auction off some of the foals, which helps control the wild pony population, but it's something that people flock to see. And last summer, I realized, "Oh, it hasn't happened yet. Maybe we should go." And it was a totally spontaneous trip, and my big girls and I went. And it was so fascinating, because we re-listened to the book on our drive out there. It's about a five-hour drive. And it was just so fascinating to get to see all of that come to life. (12:06): Probably my favorite part was there was Monday morning at sunrise, they're called the Saltwater Cowboys. They collect the herd up, and they drive them down the beach to take them to the pens where they're going to receive their vet checks. That was so cool just to see those ponies in person for my girls to imagine Misty. And I especially loved, we went to the Beebe Ranch and had a tour by the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Beebe's, and so it was just so cool for my girls to see it is a story and it is a fictionalized story to some degree, but there's also such ties to history, kind of like what you all had up in Boston and in Concord and for that to really come to life. And one of the reasons that Marguerite Henry wrote this book in the first place was so people would know about this tradition. Sarah Mackenzie (12:54): So cool. Leilani Curtis (12:55): And yeah, she's made it so much more well known. I'm so glad that we got to go and it was because we read this book, we wouldn't have known about it otherwise. Sarah Mackenzie (13:03): So cool. And you said that was not that far from you, right? Leilani Curtis (13:06): Right. Sarah Mackenzie (13:07): Yeah, so that just reminded me that there was another time, Boston was a big trip. It was like we had planned a trip. We live in Washington state, so going to Boston, Massachusetts is quite the haul for our family. But that was a big trip and I had planned ahead and things for it, but another time that we took a little trip or a little adventure based on reading was that we had just finished reading the American girl books about Kaya. Have you read those? Leilani Curtis (13:35): Uh-huh. Yep, yep. Sarah Mackenzie (13:36): Yeah. Okay. So Kaya is the American girl from the Nimíipuu tribe, the Nez Perce tribe, and at the very back of all those American, the American girl books, first of all, the historical American girl books are actually very well written. At the very end, there's always this nonfiction bit about the context of the story. And at the end of one of the books, I think it was at the end of the audiobook version actually, they were talking about how you could go still to the Nez Perce's National Historical Park in Idaho. And because we're in Washington state, I was like, "Idaho is not that far, so I wonder if we could visit that place." And I look it up and find out it's only about two hours away from our home. Leilani Curtis (14:18): That's amazing. Sarah Mackenzie (14:18): And so we just planned a day trip. So it wasn't even a big thing. It was like we just took a day trip to go to the Nez Perce's National Historical Park. They had exhibits that you could come in and see. And the docent showed us different clothing and tools they used and then, oh, now I can't remember what it's called. It's not a bow and arrow, but there's another kind of a tool that we got to use. It's kind of like a bow and arrow. Somebody who's listening to this is probably shouting out the word right now. We got to try those for a while. That was really fun too when we got to build the teepee. (14:55): Actually, if I can find those photos too, I'll throw them in the show notes as well, if I can find them. Because it was so much fun. And again, it wasn't a big thing. It was kind of like, I mean, it was a smaller thing probably than your visit even to Chincoteague. It was just like, "Oh, we can go visit this place." And somehow that brings books to life in a different way if your kids can see that the places they're reading about are right here, right where we are. Leilani Curtis (15:18): Yes. I think I found for even where we live locally, that it's just really grown my appreciation for our area when I find books to describe either maybe parts of history in that area or just people's stories. Again, we just talk about how we're talking a lot about history today because it is the story of just people and it's so fascinating to get to learn those things and then to learn, yeah, it's right here. Right where we're living is where these stories have occurred, and that always wows my kids and it grows my appreciation for our area as well. Sarah Mackenzie (15:51): I think you told me once about a trip that you took Little House Trip. You want to talk about that one? Leilani Curtis (15:56): Yeah. So it was the first time that my girls and I went through the Little House books and they were so cute. At the time, I think my oldest was, they were like seven, five, and three maybe. Sarah Mackenzie (16:09): They still are so cute actually [inaudible 00:16:11] Leilani Curtis (16:11): Oh, thanks. You're so sweet. We went to visit family in Missouri and the Ozarks House where Laura and Almanzo lived, their final home where she actually wrote the Little House books was not far from where we were visiting, and so we got to visit there. They wore little prairie dresses to go. It was so cute. And it was just really great. It was so fascinating for them to realize the stories that we had spent, and that took us probably a year to go through the series. So especially when you're seven, five, and three, that was forever. And so they just really felt like they knew Laura. And so to realize that this is where those books came from and where she wrote them, that was really special. Well, I know we kind of get this question sometimes, people are either preparing to travel to a new place or maybe after they visited somewhere that they're curious about. Do you think any particular kind of book might work best to immerse the kids? Sarah Mackenzie (17:08): I mean, I think in some ways it depends on what you have time for and how old your kids are. If you're in an all picture books all the time season, but even with my older kids, we read a lot of picture books all the way through high school, so I would not be opposed to reading picture books set in a certain place or that expand on a certain place we visited or about to visit. I mean, Johnny Tremain was especially enjoyable when we went to Boston because there were so many places that came up in the novel that we could see in real life that were real places. That doesn't always happen with novels, but I guess my hunch would sort of be like, what do you have the time and energy for? But also, really, it's not just history. I know we're talking about a lot of historical places and tie-ins, but you could go to an aquarium reading a science-based book or one of the books that you and I had really liked is Whale Fall. Leilani Curtis (18:00): Yes. Sarah Mackenzie (18:00): And there's another one that's similar, Life After Whale. Is that what that one's called? Leilani Curtis (18:04): Yes. The one illustrated by Jason Chin. Yeah, [inaudible 00:18:06] Sarah Mackenzie (18:06): Yes. Or Giant Squid by Candace Fleming or any of these other kinds of books that you could go to an aquarium and then be reading about also could bring things to life so it doesn't have to just be relegated to history. But I don't know. What do you think? Are there any particular books that you think lend themselves really well to this? Leilani Curtis (18:24): I think just whatever interests your kids the most, and every child just has maybe a certain taste. Maybe they just love picture books or our nonfiction kids, I've got one of those right now too. He will read any book on a train and he wants me to read them to him, and they don't necessarily lend themselves to a read-aloud moment, but he's fascinated. Let's read all the facts to know on this page. And I think that that would be really special then, yeah, to get to visit. We have a transportation museum. I think a lot of areas have those transportation museums on the history of transportation. Well, there's the history again. [inaudible 00:19:00] our area. Sarah Mackenzie (19:01): We can't help ourselves. Leilani Curtis (19:03): Yeah, yeah. And so I think whatever interests them most, I think that of course those novels, maybe more time, maybe more detail into a certain place, but those picture books can often render such a visual image. And especially as we have been talking to a lot of illustrators recently, they do so much research into how they're portraying those places, and I've really benefited from picture books and how the illustrators have portrayed those things and those places to us. Sarah Mackenzie (19:32): Okay. Two things come to mind as you're talking. One is that another memory sparked for me that we went, this is some years ago, we read Locomotive by Brian Floca. Have you read that? Leilani Curtis (19:41): Yes. Yes, loved that. Sarah Mackenzie (19:42): Okay. A picture book, just fabulous. And then we visited a local train museum that I just happened to see an ad for in one of those local papers that talks about events and things that are going on. That was really fun, and I remember thinking, it was one of those, it seemed a lot more planned than it was because we read this book on locomotive. We went to a train museum and then in Spokane where I live, there are a couple of restaurants that are very Spokane. They're called Frank's Diner, and they are actually old trains that used to be in use that have been converted to restaurants. So we went out to eat there too, so it felt very much like I had orchestrated this amazing day. Leilani Curtis (20:20): I love when it all falls together like that. Sarah Mackenzie (20:23): It's so great. Yeah. The other thing that I was just thinking of is that we've heard from a lot of historical fiction authors, Caroline Starr Rose is coming to mind for me right now because she told me once that she always, when she's researching for a new book she's going to write, she always goes to the picture book section first because she will learn so much. And like you said, the illustrators are doing a ton of research, so you'll actually learn a lot. Even your older kids, even you will learn so much by looking at these picture books that are set in certain times or certain places. Leilani Curtis (20:56): Yes, for sure. That makes me think of, so again, North Carolina, East Coast, a lot of lighthouses. Sarah Mackenzie (21:01): Oh, yeah. Leilani Curtis (21:01): Hello Lighthouse. Sarah Mackenzie (21:02): Yeah. Leilani Curtis (21:03): That's such a great, we took that one on one of our trips to the coast. Again, something very local for us and just really appreciated. We weren't able to tour inside the lighthouse, actually, so the book gave us that inside view that we weren't necessarily able even to take in person. So yeah, all this book. Sarah Mackenzie (21:20): I love that. It's that very synergistic thing of the books are enhancing your travel. Your travel is enhancing the reading, so it's like both things are elevated because of the other, which is really cool. Leilani Curtis (21:34): Yeah, I love that too. For sure. Sarah Mackenzie (21:40): I'm curious to know if you have a preference for reading before you visit a place or after you visit a place, or is there a certain method to your own madness? Leilani Curtis (21:49): Oh, no. I would love to say yes. I love to plan and I love to prepare, and so if we know we're going somewhere, of course, I think that that's so delightful to get to do the joy, like, "Oh, let me find some books on this." But oftentimes, like you said, it'll just be more of a random like, "Oh, I guess we should look up some books about this place we just experienced that I wasn't planning on us experiencing." And so it's so fun as well, I think, to read afterwards, to dive further in. Now having that context of that place, it lets us relive some of those memories, if you will, and I think strengthen some of those connections that you were talking about just earlier, about how the book informed the travels, but the travels can also inform the books we read later as well. I think that's really cool. Sarah Mackenzie (22:34): I love that answer. I mean, I really do. If I know we're going to take a trip, I'm definitely going to be looking for books that are set there or fairy tales. We want to take a trip to visit Scotland because my oldest daughter is at grad school in Scotland, so we've been reading Scottish fairy tales and castle legends and things like that. So I definitely will plan if I can, but I wouldn't ever let that stop me from like, oh, we already took the trip now, it doesn't matter. I think there's something about reliving the memories, about strengthening those connections, and about recognizing a place. I think if we read Johnny Tremain after we went to Boston, we'd be like, "Oh, I can exactly imagine how this." Leilani Curtis (23:14): Oh, for sure. Sarah Mackenzie (23:15): So I think there's no right or wrong way to do it. Leilani Curtis (23:17): No, not at all. Just read. Sarah Mackenzie (23:19): Yeah. Yeah. All of it yes. Whatever you can fit in. Yeah. Leilani Curtis (23:23): Well, kind of on this whole topic, Sarah, you mentioned at the start about a series of book lists that we're working on. Could you tell us more about those? Sarah Mackenzie (23:33): Yes, I'm so excited about these. Okay, as a team, we're creating a set of book lists that are based on different regions of the US. So if you are planning to visit a place, then you could find a book that's set in that place or find a pile of books, depending, that are set in that place to read about before you go or after you get back or if there's a place that you want to visit, but can't, well, there is no frigate like a book, right? So you could read these books that are set in this place. So we have divided the US into regions and our first book list is ready now. It is a collection of picture books, and then there's also a collection of novels that are set in the Northeast. So states like New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Washington DC, all of those northeast regional areas. We've got lots of books that are set in those places. (24:28): It's not a comprehensive list. I should take a moment to say that. At Read-Aloud Revival, our book lists actually are never comprehensive. We are really interested in helping you... In helping you pick the best of the best, so we just read a ton of books and then our book lists are pretty whittled down to what we think are from what we read, the best of the best that we could find. That way, no matter which book that you get off of the list, however many you're able to get your hands on, we just want it to be very likely that they'll all be wins for your family. So it's a pretty curated list of really fabulous books set in the northeast, and it was really, really fun to make and kind of hard to whittle down. Leilani Curtis (25:12): Yes, it was so hard, especially in the northeast. There are just so many. I know we're going to feel this way. Every region that we go to next is going to be like, "Oh, that one was really hard too." Because there's so many great books and such a great way to learn about each area. But yeah, we just really hope that this can continue to foster just some of that family book club culture that we really love to encourage at Read-Aloud Revival that ties in books with experience. It makes it so tangible and it strengthens connections and in families for sure. Sarah, do you have any particular favorites from our new northeast list? Sarah Mackenzie (25:50): Oh, how much time do we have? Well, in this particular book list, first of all, I don't know why all the best picture books are sent in Maine, but they are. Leilani Curtis (26:00): Yeah, it's like a mecca of children's books up there. It's amazing. Sarah Mackenzie (26:04): I know, and they make the best stories. So we've got Barbara Cooney's books like Miss Rumphius, An Island Boy, some of Robert McCloskey's books, like One Morning in Maine, Blueberries for Sal, Time of Wonder. There is a Gail Gibbons book called Surrounded by the Sea that is a very northeast New England coastal feel. So any of those books I especially love. Make Way for Ducklings is one of my favorite children's books, and I love that you can go up to Boston, Massachusetts to the Boston Public Garden and you can visit the ducklings that are sculpted there by Nancy Schön. So I can't. I'm sure people can, I can't go to Boston without feeling like I'm in the presence of Robert McCloskey, so it's just so... Yeah, a lot of the picture book list on this one is especially just so fabulous. What about you? What are some of your favorites from the list? Leilani Curtis (26:58): Oh, yes. Well, I kept leaning towards in this whole episode, I love the history books and one of our team members, Elena, discovered a book called A Parade for George Washington by David Adler, which was new to me and it was so perfectly timed because my husband and I just recently had the opportunity to get away to New York City, which was my first time. I loved it. And because I had read this picture book based off of her find before we went, it talks about George Washington's first inauguration, which was at Federal Hall in New York City. It happened to be around the corner from where we were staying. So I was like, "We have to go." It was so great. Sarah Mackenzie (27:36): Yes, that's so cool. Leilani Curtis (27:37): And we're like, "Hey, thanks for making sure I didn't miss this opportunity to get to see this part of history." So really, any of the books tied to history on that list are favorites for me. Sarah Mackenzie (27:48): Well, you can grab that book list for free by going to readaloudrevival.com/259 since this is episode 259. You can view the book list online or you can print it out and take it with you to your bookshop or a library. It's full of fabulous northeast finds, and we're going to keep making this series of book lists for you so you can watch for more of these book lists that will take you places or help you visit places that you can't go or prepare you for places that you want to go. All the different things, all the different ways of traveling through books. You can look forward to lots more of those lists to come, but readaloudrevival.com/259 to grab the northeast book list today. Leilani, thank you so much for coming on the show and chatting with me and making this super fun book list. Leilani Curtis (28:34): Oh, thanks so much. It's such a joy to join you. Sarah Mackenzie (28:36): All right. Now, let's go here from Read-Aloud Revival Kids about the books they're loving lately. Miles (28:51): Hello, my name is Miles and I'm 12 years old and I'm from Spokane, Washington and my favorite book is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, because Harry has a hot temper in this book and he's kind of like me and I'm able to relate to that. Jonah (29:12): Hello, my name is Jonah and I am 10 years old and I live in Spokane, Washington. My favorite book is Keeper of Lost Cities because there's magic and elves and I really like both of those things. Ruth (29:32): Hi, my name is Ruth and I am eight years old. I live in Spokane, Washington. My favorite book is Boxcar Children because the kids have to solve a bunch of mysteries. Jane (29:46): Hi, my name is Jane and I am six years old and I live in Spokane, Washington, and my favorite book is Dragon Noodle. And it's Dragon Noodle. There is the noodles and the noodles [inaudible 00:30:04]. Faith (30:07): Hi, my name is Faith. I'm eight years old and I live in Indiana. The book I recommend is The Chronicle of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. I like it because it has battles and kings and queens. Caleb (30:22): Hi, my name is Caleb and I am six years old. I live in Indiana and the book I recommend is Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne. I like it because they go in a magic tree house and I like maps and they go to different countries. Sarah Mackenzie (30:43): What's your name? Bella (30:46): Bella. Sarah Mackenzie (30:47): And how old are you? Bella (30:48): Five. Sarah Mackenzie (30:50): And what is your favorite book, Bella? Bella (30:54): Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. Because Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle says crazy things to make people do things. Sarah Mackenzie (31:05): And hi, what is your name? Ava (31:07): Ava. Sarah Mackenzie (31:08): And how old are you? Ava (31:09): Three. Sarah Mackenzie (31:11): You're three. And where do you live? Ava (31:15): Indiana. Sarah Mackenzie (31:16): Indiana. And what's your favorite book? Ava (31:19): The Elephants and Piggies. Sarah Mackenzie (31:21): Elephant and Piggies. And why is that your favorite book? Ava (31:24): Because I love it. Sarah Mackenzie (31:26): You love it. Thank you. Thank you kids. I'll be back in two weeks with another episode. In the meantime, you know what to do. Go make meaningful and lasting connections with your kids through books.