Brad Meltzer, I AM... LEONARDO DA VINCI & THE LINCOLN CONSPIRACY
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[1:23]Okay, settle in listeners because this is a long bio. Brad Meltzer is unbelievably accomplished.
[1:29]So just listen to this because it's amazing.
[1:32]Brad Meltzer is the number one New York Times best-selling author of 12 thrillers,
[1:36]like the escape artist and the fifth assassin. He has written several non-fiction books too.
[1:41]History decoded the first conspiracy, the secret plot to kill George Washington,
[1:45]and now his latest adult book, The Lincoln Conspiracy, the secret plot to kill America's 16th
[1:51]president and why it failed, co-written with Josh Mensch, which goes on till May 5th.
[1:56]Brad has also written gift and advice books like Heroes for My Daughter and My Son,
[2:00]and the massively successful ordinary people change the world series of children's books,
[2:05]like I Am Whoever. His latest in the series, illustrated by Christopher Iliopoulos, is I Am Leonardo
[2:12]Da Vinci, which comes out April 14th, which is tomorrow at the time of my recording.
[2:16]Brad even writes comic books, like Justice League of America, for which he won the prestigious
[2:21]Eisenhower Award. He helped find the missing 9-11 flag with his history channel TV show Brad Meltzer's
[2:26]Lost History, and has another show called Brad Meltzer's Decoded on History Channel.
[2:31]He also has a show on PBS Kids called Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum,
[2:36]based on his I Am Children's Books. The Hollywood Reporter, understandably, put Brad on their list
[2:41]of Hollywood's 25 most powerful authors. Raised in Brooklyn and Miami, Brad graduated from
[2:46]the University of Michigan and Columbia Law School. He currently lives with his wife in Florida.
[2:51]Welcome, Brad. Thanks for coming on Moms. I don't have time to read books.
[2:54]I appreciate you having me on. I am so excited to have you on. I honestly thank you
[2:59]are the most prolific author I have ever dreamed of interviewing. And my kids and I have read
[3:05]basically every one of your books in the I Am series. So this is like, they're going to flip out.
[3:11]Yeah, I don't know. If we can't do a Moms podcast and have, and you haven't read the I Am books,
[3:15]we've failed, right? We've just not done our job. But obviously, and you know, we're kind of talking
[3:21]over laughing people and trying to figure out before we started this podcast. But obviously,
[3:26]you know, those books come from, you know, that same love that first thing we were talking about,
[3:30]we started talking was I love for our kids, right? When you work on doing some of your kids,
[3:34]you'll just do anything, no matter how stupid or crazy, you'll eat out of boxes that you don't
[3:37]want to eat out. You'll get deliveries for whatever because you're just trying to do right by your kids.
[3:42]And that's what these books came from is I just want to my kids to have. I was, you know,
[3:47]tired of them looking at reality TV show stars and people who are famously infamous and thinking
[3:51]that's a hero. And I was like, I had so many better heroes I could give them. And the funny thing
[3:55]was I started with Amelia Earhart. I was like, I got Amelia Earhart. I'm going to give it to my
[3:59]daughter. She's going to love it. I told her Amelia Earhart flew across the Atlantic Ocean. I
[4:02]figured she'd say, dad, you're indeed the greatest father of all time. Thank you for teaching me such
[4:06]wonderful things. And she's like, big deal that everyone flies across Atlanta. Like, she was so
[4:10]unimpressed. And then I told her this amazing story about the Amelia Earhart,
[4:15]the one Amelia Earhart was seven years old. And this is true. She built a homemade roller
[4:19]coaster in her backyard. She took a wooden crate where roller skating wheels on the bottom of it.
[4:23]She shoved it to the roof of her tool shed. She gets on the crate on the skating wheels,
[4:28]comes flying down the side down piece of wood, glands, crashes, screams, something like that
[4:33]was amazing. And she later said that feeling she had when her stomach bottomed out from under her
[4:39]that she wanted that feeling back again. And that's the first time Amelia Earhart ever flies.
[4:44]She's seven years old. And when I told my daughter that story, my daughter was like, dad,
[4:48]tell me that one again. And that's when I knew her on the summer. So we started this whole line
[4:52]of nonfiction biographies, children's books. We started with I'm Amelia Earhart and I'm
[4:56]Abraham Lincoln. We did I am Rosa Parks and Albert Einstein. My son loves sports, but I'm like,
[5:02]I have no patience for like millionaire sports heroes. I'm like, that's fame. You know, being famous is
[5:07]very different than being here. I always tell my son. So I say, you want to see what a hero looks like
[5:11]here. I wrote this book here. It's called I am Jackie Robinson. And then we did Helen Keller,
[5:16]where we put real Braille in the book and the page of the book go black when you get to those pages.
[5:20]And it says, here's why I see the world. You know, feel these dots. This is my name. We put real
[5:25]Braille in the books. She's like, my name's Helen. I watched these books for a little kids,
[5:28]you know, like four to 10 years old. But I watched my 18 year old son had his eyes closed and he's
[5:34]feeling the pages of the book. And I walk in the room and he's like, dad, this one's actually good.
[5:41]And I'm like, actually, you know, like, but we did. I am Lucille Ball for my daughter,
[5:46]because I wanted to have a female entertainment hero. It wasn't just famous me in thin and pretty,
[5:51]that Lucy's doing for the idea. It's okay to be different. That's what makes us special as we're all
[5:55]different. We don't celebrate that anymore. But we need to. And I'll wait a billion. But some
[6:00]amazing happened with the book series when the 2016 election happened. And this amazing thing
[6:05]happened. Two of our books started selling more than any others. And they were I am Martin with
[6:09]King Jr. and I am George Washington. And it wasn't a Democrat or Republican thing even. It was just,
[6:15]it was that people were tired of putting on the TV when Hillary and Donald Trump were arguing more
[6:19]than ever in the beginning of the 2016 election. Those books took off and people were tired of
[6:24]putting on the TV and seeing politicians what they wanted to show their kids were leaders.
[6:29]And we all know there's a huge difference between a politician and a leader. And since Donald
[6:33]Trump was elected, our books sales, you know, people are just tired of what they see on TV. They're
[6:38]tired of seeing someone who, you know, they want to find better leaders for their kids. And so,
[6:42]you know, they've used our books to kind of fight back in this divisiveness that we see in society
[6:47]today. And as you said, we did Billie Jean King. We did Sonya Sotomayor. We did Gandhi to teach
[6:52]mindfulness. We did Sakajui to teach your kids how to blaze their own trail. And each book
[6:58]always has a more or less. And on the back of them. So, you know, on the back of I'm the
[7:01]Milea Yard, it says, I know no bounds. On the back of I'm the Abraham Lincoln. It says, I'll
[7:05]speak my mind and speak for others. You know, we did I am Walt Disney, best-selling book that we
[7:09]just launched. You know, and it was basically, I believe, you know, the person that can make dreams
[7:12]come true is you. Or Marie Curity teach science. And I love that we've been able to kind of help
[7:17]people build libraries of real heroes for their kids and their grandkids and their needs to send
[7:21]their nephews. So amazing. So how old were your kids when you did the first one?
[7:25]So my kid, I started writing. They were I think they were seven and four when I started writing for
[7:33]they came out when they were eight and five. And the funny thing is my old my youngest is now
[7:39]as old as my oldest was when I started writing for them. But they still read them. Even my 18
[7:43]year old still reads them. So my 18 and 14 and, you know, 11 like they are reading the books because
[7:48]they it's the only thing nothing I do impress is my kids nothing at any level. I could write a
[7:53]million thrillers. I can go eat it. Look at the White House. I could do it. They do not care.
[7:57]But I was very smart is I hid my kids. I'm hidden in every book. And I hid my kids in every
[8:02]book. And that guarantees that they will pick up my work and look for themselves and just so I
[8:07]can make little narcissists. No, but obviously they did. It's the one thing that I do that they
[8:12]actually like to read. And that's been obviously the best reward of all. Well, I mean, they're not
[8:16]really just for kids. I mean, there's stuff I learned in every one of those books that I didn't know.
[8:20]I didn't even know Leonardo Da Vinci. I didn't even know Da Vinci that Vinci was a place. Like,
[8:25]I feel like a moron. I've gone. Yeah, let's talk about the new one. The new one that is
[8:28]literally just coming out right now is I am leader of Da Vinci. And I of course started with
[8:32]I'm like, okay, well, his family name is Da Vinci, right? And I saw that. And I was like, wait,
[8:37]you're telling me that Vinci is not his last name. I'm like, I bought the Da Vinci code. I'm like,
[8:42]I write in thrillers, all this stuff. I'm like, and his name is Leonardo. And he's from Vinci. Like,
[8:48]I'm like, and like, you know, to steal your joke. Like, I am Brad, Dave Brooklyn,
[8:52]Dave Miami. Like, that's the bit, right? Like, and I was like, we have to put that in there. And we
[8:56]have more adults that write me letters, parents that say, like, I just want you to know my kids
[9:00]go to bed. I reread your books. And I like them. Like, we sell more. I am Lucille balls to adults
[9:05]than we do to anyone else. And obviously why? Because I love these facts. I love showing kids
[9:12]and adults that, you know, and to me, we always tell these stories about our heroes, right? We
[9:17]turn them. We build statues of our heroes. We worship at their feet. We make them perfect in
[9:22]every way. And we do them a huge disservice. Because anyone you look up to, whether it's Abraham
[9:28]Lincoln, whether it's Rosa Parks, whether it's Leonardo Da Vinci or Amelia Earhart had moments
[9:32]where they were scared and they were terrified. And they didn't think they could go on. But they do.
[9:36]And you see that Leonardo Da Vinci, when he's younger, he thinks he's a terrible painter.
[9:40]He thinks he's awful at this. He's like, I have no talent. He's Leonardo Da Vinci.
[9:45]And those are the parts we've always put in the book that are the most important. Not
[9:49]where they're succeeding and doing amazing things, or where they're totally utterly failing.
[9:54]Watching Abraham Lincoln lose eight elections. Watching Walt Disney goes bankrupt with one of
[10:00]was first businesses.
[10:01]And they tell him he's so poor at that moment
[10:03]that he sleeps in a bus station.
[10:06]And he takes baths there because he has no money.
[10:09]And to have my kids,
[10:11]we all know Disney has this great property
[10:14]and everyone goes to Disney or Disneyland
[10:15]and it's like the most beautiful place
[10:17]in one of the place on earth.
[10:18]But when I teach my kids that Walt Disney failed,
[10:22]that the first Mickey Mouse cartoon was a disaster.
[10:24]That one Walt Disney named Mickey Mouse.
[10:26]He called him Mortimer Mouse.
[10:28]And his wife is like, that's a terrible name, Mortimer.
[10:32]That's a terrible name.
[10:33]And he said, okay, what do you think is better?
[10:35]And she's like, I don't know, what about Mickey?
[10:37]And that's how the world gets Mickey Mouse.
[10:39]Not because America is the greatest country on earth.
[10:41]Not because Walt Disney's always a genius
[10:42]because his wife is like schmuck.
[10:44]Listen, pay attention.
[10:46]And my kids are like, oh, so the first draft can be bad.
[10:48]I'm like, exactly.
[10:50]You gotta work it to make greatness.
[10:52]And I want to teach my kids that you fail and you fail
[10:58]but if you get back up again, that's how you fly.
[11:01]That's what this source has always been dedicated to.
[11:04]That's so amazing.
[11:05]I could just listen to you all day.
[11:06]This is great.
[11:07]It's like so inspiring.
[11:08]I feel like, especially now, everyone's talking about heroes
[11:10]all the time.
[11:11]What makes a hero?
[11:12]How can we be heroes?
[11:13]The heroes on the front line?
[11:14]And that's like what you've dedicated your life to doing.
[11:16]It's finding what's heroic about everybody
[11:18]and what made them that way.
[11:20]And grit and perseverance.
[11:22]And that's why we call the books,
[11:23]the ordinary people change the world's series, right?
[11:26]Maybe that's my core belief.
[11:27]I believe ordinary people change the world.
[11:29]I don't care where you went to school.
[11:30]I don't care much money you make.
[11:31]That's nonsense to me.
[11:32]I believe in regular people
[11:34]and their ability to affect change in this world.
[11:35]And it's why I believe in a seven-year-old girl named
[11:38]Amelia Earhart and a 10-year-old boy named Abraham Lincoln
[11:41]and a 12-year-old boy named Leonardo da Vinci
[11:44]who's scared of his own shadow
[11:45]and who thinks his paintings are terrible.
[11:47]And even as they get older,
[11:49]Leonardo da Vinci just to focus on the new one.
[11:51]I mean, Leonardo da Vinci invents a tank.
[11:55]He invents a parachute that doesn't work.
[11:57]He invents a scuba gear.
[11:59]Helicopter.
[11:59]And glider, a helicopter,
[12:01]like all these crazy things in every single one of them fails.
[12:04]None of them work.
[12:05]They fail and fail and fail.
[12:07]But eventually, it's time passes
[12:09]and technology catches up every single one of them works.
[12:13]And my God, how can I not teach my kids
[12:15]that sometimes the craziest ideas, the best ideas?
[12:18]I need my kids to learn that lesson.
[12:20]I need them to learn like Walt Disney to fail.
[12:23]I need them to learn that like Marie Curie
[12:26]who used to have like failure after failure
[12:28]in her experiments that is, you know,
[12:30]they used to tell Marie Curie when she was a little girl.
[12:32]When she was growing up,
[12:34]a government said that girls could not study science.
[12:37]And if a girl studied science, it was bad.
[12:39]They wouldn't teach it to them
[12:40]because they thought it would make them too powerful.
[12:43]And you know what?
[12:44]They were right.
[12:45]They were totally utterly right.
[12:48]And that's amazing.
[12:49]And she found this place called the invisible,
[12:51]you know, the invisible college up,
[12:52]sorry, the flying university was like an invisible college,
[12:55]right?
[12:56]It's called the flying university.
[12:57]It doesn't physically fly,
[12:59]but it would secretly,
[13:00]well, no one knew teach science to girls.
[13:03]And she's, Mayor falls in love with science.
[13:05]Decided she's gonna become a scientist,
[13:07]learns about elements,
[13:08]and vents, you know, the word radioactive
[13:10]and radioactivity and all these amazing things.
[13:13]And then when, you know, the first person,
[13:14]everyone too, Nobel Prize in two different categories,
[13:16]man or woman at the teach my, you know,
[13:18]her whole life, they tell you cannot do this
[13:21]because you're a girl.
[13:23]You cannot do this because you're a woman when she gets older.
[13:26]And every single time she refuses to take no for an answer.
[13:30]I need my daughter to hear that lesson.
[13:32]I wrote I am Marie Curie
[13:34]and the entire ordinary people change world series
[13:36]because I want my kids to have that lesson.
[13:38]I want my boys to have that lesson too
[13:40]to see where a strong woman can do.
[13:41]Great. Now all I have to do is read your books to them.
[13:44]You're going to do it all the work
[13:45]and I'll just profit from it.
[13:48]I have to say though that there's something about your books
[13:50]and even the show, Jack and Bobby,
[13:51]which I didn't even know you were involved in.
[13:53]And I was like a huge fan of that show
[13:55]and I think about it a lot.
[13:56]And the reason why is because I watch my kids
[13:58]run your hand and half the time actually
[14:00]like when it takes her driving me crazy.
[14:02]But I think to myself, well, you know, every president
[14:05]had to have been a kid at some point.
[14:06]What if like, well, maybe my daughter is singing
[14:09]at the dinner table now because actually
[14:11]she's going to be Taylor Swift.
[14:12]And one day I'm going to say, yeah,
[14:14]when she was little,
[14:16]this is what she would do at the dinner table.
[14:18]So first of all, God bless you for watching Jack and Bobby.
[14:20]Because when we got our ratings back,
[14:23]I mean, you know, the entertainment weekly put us on
[14:25]like the top 12 greatest shows
[14:27]that were canceled of all time after one season
[14:29]and which is like a list you're happy to be on
[14:31]but you're not so happy to be on at the same time.
[14:33]But our pitch for the show was the same as the pitch
[14:36]for these books.
[14:36]I'll tell you what the pitch for the show was.
[14:38]I'm not, it's funny you just said that exact example
[14:40]but this was the pitch for the show is
[14:42]there is right now a kid somewhere in America
[14:44]in a supermarket who was pulling
[14:46]all the potato chips off the shelf
[14:49]and throwing a huge tantrum
[14:50]and flipping out in the middle of that supermarket aisle
[14:53]and that kid is going to be president.
[14:55]And when she's president, she's going to be amazing.
[14:58]And everyone will be silent when they were listening
[15:00]to the pitch because they're like, that's really true.
[15:02]That's the best part of America, right?
[15:04]Is anyone can be president?
[15:05]Any one of us has, we all have greatness within us
[15:08]and it's, you know, these crazy things
[15:10]that we kind of bowl through our lives
[15:12]that make us who we are.
[15:14]And the kids books, you know,
[15:15]the ordinary people change the world books
[15:16]are exactly that, right?
[15:18]Like when you look at Walt Disney,
[15:20]he used to literally write one day he painted
[15:23]on the side of his house with tar.
[15:26]Tar, his parents are like, what are you doing
[15:28]that's never going to come off?
[15:30]And he's like, it'll come off, it did not come off.
[15:31]They sold the house with a tar, awful painting
[15:34]on the side of it.
[15:35]And the kid goes up to be Walt Disney, right?
[15:37]Abraham Lincoln has this moment
[15:39]when he's little, he's 10 years old,
[15:41]used to love animals.
[15:42]And he comes upon a group of boys playing with turtles.
[15:45]And he's like, oh, I'm so excited.
[15:47]He goes to play with the turtles and it gets there.
[15:49]And he sees that the boys aren't playing with the turtles.
[15:51]What they're doing is they're putting hot coals
[15:53]on the backs of the turtles.
[15:54]They're torturing the turtles,
[15:55]make them run faster.
[15:56]And Abraham Lincoln's horrified by this.
[15:58]And I don't care if you're 10 years old
[16:00]or you're 50 years old,
[16:01]it's sometimes hard to do the right thing.
[16:04]But someone has to.
[16:05]And in that moment, he's like, take the coal off the turtle,
[16:07]stands up for those turtles.
[16:09]And to this day, my youngest son sleeps
[16:11]with a little Abraham Lincoln doll
[16:13]that one of our readers made for us.
[16:16]He doesn't care about Abraham Lincoln freeing the slaves.
[16:18]It's kind of like too crazy a concept for him.
[16:21]That's not a point of reference.
[16:23]But he knows what it's like to be nice town.
[16:24]It was he loves our dog.
[16:26]He cares about that so much.
[16:28]And he'll never forget that.
[16:30]Abraham Lincoln's his favorite president
[16:31]for that human, human moment.
[16:33]And you find that moment when these people are kids,
[16:36]like that Amelia Earhart story I showed you,
[16:38]I realized with my daughter,
[16:39]that was the secret sauce of our books.
[16:41]As you always see them when they're kids,
[16:43]you see them screwing up,
[16:45]you see them making mistakes,
[16:46]you see them doing what they love.
[16:48]And that's how they have all this.
[16:49]Because when I wrote,
[16:50]one of them that I really learned about was my daughter,
[16:51]loves our dog.
[16:52]She's obsessed with our dog.
[16:53]Number one thing ever.
[16:55]And she made power points for years
[16:57]until we would get the dog the whole thing.
[16:59]Even when she was like 10 years old,
[17:01]and I wrote for her, I am Jane Goodall.
[17:04]Because I wanted her to see him like,
[17:05]oh, Jane Goodall took her love with animals
[17:08]and became one of the greatest scientists in the world.
[17:11]Just by taking what she loves
[17:12]and turning into something that could change the world.
[17:14]And I needed my daughter to have that lesson
[17:17]that those things your kids do,
[17:19]whether it's your daughter singing at the dinner table
[17:21]or artwork that you're kind of like,
[17:23]oh my gosh, you're a Lego building there.
[17:24]Like if I step on one more of these,
[17:25]I'm gonna put a gun in my head,
[17:26]but those things are who your kids are.
[17:28]And if you feed them and water them,
[17:31]they will grow in beautiful ways you'll never anticipate.
[17:33]And that's what all these books are about.
[17:35]And let's go back to Lincoln for a second.
[17:37]We'll take out the little stuffed animal situation
[17:39]and turn it into now your grown-up book.
[17:42]And I love, by the way, on your website,
[17:44]that it divides your face and you're like,
[17:46]here's my kid life and here's my grown-up life
[17:48]because you write so many books of each kind.
[17:51]Your new book is also coming out.
[17:52]So you have the Leonardo da Vinci book coming out in April
[17:55]and then Lincoln conspiracy in May, correct?
[17:57]Yep.
[17:58]And that you co-wrote with Josh Mensch.
[18:00]Yes.
[18:01]Josh Mensch.
[18:02]Josh, what a name.
[18:03]Josh, what a name.
[18:04]It's a perfect Jewish last name.
[18:05]You're gonna pick a co-author.
[18:06]You pick Mensch.
[18:07]It doesn't matter.
[18:09]My name is Mike.
[18:10]But Josh and I worked on the history channel TV show I did.
[18:12]He was our executive producer, amazing documentarian
[18:14]and one of the best research and writers I ever work with.
[18:17]And we worked on a book about a secret plot
[18:19]to kill George Washington that I found.
[18:21]That in 1776, it was a plot to kill George Washington.
[18:24]And I was like, you know, when George Washington found out
[18:27]about it, he gathered up those responsible.
[18:29]He built the gallows.
[18:30]He took one of the main COVID spirits and he hanged them
[18:32]in front of 20,000 people in New York City.
[18:34]The largest public execution at that point
[18:36]in North American history, George Washington brought
[18:38]the hammer down was like, do not mess with me.
[18:40]I'm gonna be on the money one day.
[18:41]That was his actual quote.
[18:43]And so I loved doing that book.
[18:46]And so we did the first conspiracy
[18:47]and now we are coming out with a linking conspiracy.
[18:49]The linking was assassinated.
[18:51]So there was another attempt.
[18:52]Yeah, but there's a different time.
[18:54]So this is actually about the secret plot
[18:55]to kill Abraham Lincoln at the start of his presidency
[18:58]that failed.
[19:00]And what happened was in 1860, Abraham Lincoln is elected
[19:03]and he decides that they're gonna,
[19:05]you gotta go and get sworn in as the 16th president.
[19:08]You raise your right hand.
[19:09]You say, you know, I solemnly swear.
[19:11]And Abraham Lincoln has to leave Springfield, Illinois
[19:13]to go to Washington.
[19:14]They see to be sworn in after his victorious.
[19:16]If you want to go from Illinois down to Washington,
[19:20]unless you're riding on a horse,
[19:21]because there are no cars back then you're taking a train.
[19:23]And the problem was, is everyone had the train scheduled.
[19:25]They knew where Lincoln was.
[19:26]And the only way to get from Springfield, Illinois down
[19:29]to Washington, they see is you gotta go through Baltimore.
[19:31]So one place where all the trains switch
[19:32]is in Baltimore.
[19:34]The time was a slave state.
[19:36]Marilyn was a slave state.
[19:37]They hated Abraham Lincoln there.
[19:39]And so a secret society, an offshoot of the Knights
[19:42]of the Golden Circle actually plotted to murder Abraham Lincoln
[19:45]when he came through Baltimore.
[19:47]And America's first private detective,
[19:50]my name Alan Pinkerton of the Pinkerton Detective Agency
[19:52]finds out about it.
[19:54]He works with the first female private detective
[19:57]in all of American history of woman named Kate Warren.
[20:00]And they, along with the group of detectives at the Pinkerton's, they infiltrate the bad guys,
[20:05]infiltrate the secret society. It's incredible to watch what they do. They make Abraham Lincoln.
[20:09]They grab him in the middle of the night. They put him in the disguise. It won't ruin the
[20:12]end of the book for you. But they sneak him aboard a speeding train to save his life from being
[20:17]killed even before he sworn in as president on his way to his own inauguration. And story,
[20:22]it's lost the history. And I was like, we need to tell that story. And that's what the
[20:26]Lincoln's first year. So the Lincoln's first year obviously for adults and not for kids,
[20:29]but obviously a great mother's and father's day of president is what we're hoping for.
[20:34]Nice marketing like the tie in. That's good. When do you do everything? I just have to ask about your
[20:42]time management. Do you focus on it? Just when do you get it all done? You do so many different
[20:47]things. Yeah. You know, the kids books are everything I write, I tend to write in one sitting.
[20:52]Like I can't, you know, like bob around to every different thing because you just won't be
[20:56]giving your all. And you got to give your all to everything. The kids books are the one exception
[21:00]to that because they're not a 400 page novel or a 400 page nonfiction historical book with,
[21:07]you know, 50 pages of footnotes. Like those need full attention for a year or two. But the kids
[21:13]books are 30 pages. So those I can kind of do in section off time and I'll tend to do those.
[21:20]And I tend to also save those for when there's something in my kids lives that I feel like I need.
[21:25]You know, when my daughter was really going through dealing with the dog and some school stuff,
[21:30]like I was like, oh, I got to write, you know, Jen, good all for her here. She needs this right now.
[21:34]Like when we were dealing with like issues of equality, I was like, okay, it's got to be
[21:38]a village in King. That's clearly what we need to do now. When the 2016 election happened and just
[21:43]the venom that I saw happening in society, we were just screaming at whatever your politics are,
[21:47]screaming at the other side. That's when I decided to write, I am Gandhi. I was like, we need to
[21:51]figure out a peaceful way to get here. And so those books will, you know, think I'm a different set of
[21:57]time. And obviously Chris L. A.opolis, who's our amazing artist, you know, our kids books are,
[22:02]he's the secret weapon. And I listen, I wish it was me as a writer, but what it is is he has this
[22:09]art style that's a little bit like Charlie Brown meets Calvin and Hobbs. And the ordinary people
[22:13]change world books, you know, I wish my kids were off their screens. I wish they were off their
[22:17]phones and devices. But the only way I can make that happen is if I give them something better to look
[22:21]at and Chris is the secret weapon. When I show my daughter that picture of the little Amelia
[22:28]Earhart that I had him draw for her when I was teaching her about Amelia Earhart, she was like,
[22:32]oh, she's so cute. I like that. I want that. And then I was like, okay, I got it. So Chris is really
[22:37]though, you know, so obviously I'm writing them, but then he's drawing them when we're going back
[22:41]and forth. But otherwise, I really focused just on that one thing. Like right now, we, you know,
[22:45]I just finished a couple months ago, the Lincoln conspiracy and that's coming out and now I'm on
[22:49]the new thriller that I've just been full speed ahead on. And what, what are some Iams that are coming
[22:53]up? So I wish I had some here. I'll send them to you so you can actually show people. The next one
[22:58]is I am Benjamin Franklin. And then probably the most important one that we're doing to talk about
[23:04]something that I saw as a need is we're doing I am Anna Frank. And I just saw the rise in
[23:09]antisemitism. I was like, how do I explain this to my kids? How do I look at how we're talking
[23:13]about immigrants in the immigrant experience right now? Like, how do I deal with the venom
[23:17]that we have for each other right now? And it's a really hard book. I mean, who's going to buy
[23:22]I am and Frank for their little ones? But I was like, we need to, I don't care if we sell zero copies.
[23:26]I don't care if I have to give them away to every JCC incident. I got, I am going to do this
[23:31]because it's just what we need. And I wish I had for my own kids. And I will say it's just
[23:37]it's one of the most special things we've ever worked on. Chris just drew it in such
[23:41]in a bucket of way, like go on our website and just see the drawing. And what we did is when she,
[23:46]it's just this beautiful light, this kind of like golden light. And when she goes into the
[23:51]attic, I had Chris, I said to him, what I want to do is once they actually go into the secret
[23:55]bookcase and go up into the attic rather than have your full pages, what I want to do is shrink
[24:00]it to like a wide screen little horizontal panel. So it's all black on top, all black on the bottom.
[24:05]Like you're just watching an independent film. And the space that she's in just keeps getting
[24:09]smaller and shrinking as the book goes on. And you just feel that space getting smaller and
[24:14]small. And it's just, again, it's all visual because it's a children's book and it's a,
[24:19]you know, it's a cartoon style. But Chris just did something that is magical.
[24:24]Wow. So I am Frank and I am Benjamin Franklin come out in September. And as you said,
[24:29]Leonardo, which is just out now. Wow. That's really exciting.
[24:32]What do you think? Who can be a hero right now? What do you think given this crazy time?
[24:37]What can we also? What can we teach our kids about being here as now? Like what can they do?
[24:42]Listen, I think two things. I think one, I think you got to teach them how the best heroes that we
[24:47]look for in history are just like them. And we talked about that, right? You got to bring Abraham
[24:51]like an office pedestal and George Washington and Rosa Parks, you know, but not some little old
[24:55]lady, you know, she was like young when she sat on that bus. So like, you know, Jane Goodall was
[25:00]like with her mom and said, I want to go to Tanzania. Let's go and mom's like, I'll go with you
[25:05]because they said, you can't go, a woman can't go alone. And mom's like, I'll go with you,
[25:08]you know, like these are human beings with real moms and real dads and real problems,
[25:11]real fears. But I think oddly, now more than ever, people used to always ask like,
[25:16]are there any heroes today in society? I was like, the number one question I would always get
[25:19]talking about these books. Are there any heroes left there still alive? And I'd always say the
[25:23]same thing, like look around there everywhere. And I think if the virus has taught us anything,
[25:28]it's exactly that. It's exactly like look around, you know, in New York City at seven o'clock
[25:32]every night, you have the first responders being cheered for. I wish that was done in every place
[25:37]in the country because I always whenever I talk to kids in their classrooms and we've done a
[25:41]lot of story times we put on on our YouTube channel and on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram,
[25:46]but I always say the best heroes are the ones you live with. The best heroes are the ones that
[25:51]are your teachers. I can tell you and that comes from my own life, my teacher when I was in 9th
[25:57]th grade, my 9th grade English teacher changed my life. She changed my life with three words.
[26:02]She said to me, you can write. She's like, well, I wronged right. She's like, no, no, no,
[26:05]you know what you're doing. And she tried to put me in the honors class. I had some sort of conflict.
[26:10]She said, here's what we're going to do. You're going to sit in the corner for the entire year.
[26:14]Ignore every homework assignment I give. You're going to do the honors work instead. And what
[26:18]you're really going to do is you're going to thank me later. And a decade later, when my first book came
[26:23]out, I went into her class, my knock on the door. She said, can I help you? I said, my name is Brad
[26:27]Meltzer. I wrote this book and it's for you. And she starts crying. And I'm like, why you crying?
[26:32]And she's like, I was going to retire this year. She said to me because I didn't think I was having
[26:36]an impact anymore. And I said, are you kidding me? I said, you have 30 students. We have one teacher.
[26:42]And she had no concept of her impact on my life. No idea for legacy or her impact on me.
[26:47]And that is true for everybody. Everyone, everyone listening here, you, I know we all have someone
[26:54]who is the first person who told us we were good at something. The first person who said, you know,
[26:58]you could do this. My mother, you know, who never read a book in her life. She read six books
[27:03]her whole life. They were my six books before she passed away. But when I told her, like,
[27:08]whatever, when she read my first novel, I said, mom, what do you think? She's like, Bradley,
[27:12]I got to tell you this book attempts justice. And I'm like, oh, here it comes. She says,
[27:16]is the greatest book of all time. And she totally meant it. She literally meant that it was the
[27:21]greatest book of all time. And when you thank those people who helped you and who gave you a
[27:27]shot, you get to thank your heroes. And so I think it's, you know, whether it's your teachers,
[27:33]like, I think always about thanking teachers, librarians, your mom, your dad, the grandparents out
[27:38]there, like, whatever we're done talking to, we won't miss this all done. And the person is done
[27:43]listening to this podcast, like, I hope they take a moment. I hope you take a moment and one
[27:46]listening. And you know what, do this. Find that person who told you were good at something. Find
[27:51]that first person who took a chance and you'll give your first real job. Track them on Facebook,
[27:55]put their name in the Google and say thank you. You will not believe what comes from it.
[28:01]I love that. I'm going to do that. I have a bunch of different people now. I'm like,
[28:05]who should I pick? But yes, thank you. I'm good. Yeah, we did say in the fact in the back of
[28:10]I'm Helen Keller. We put that on the page because she has a teacher. And I said, it says in the
[28:13]back, thank the teacher. Call it right now. Say thank you to that teacher. And it was just,
[28:17]to me, the most important page in the whole book. I have, I have to say, been thanking my kids
[28:21]teachers because I believe they have been heroic in this. Oh, my gosh. So I have been doing that
[28:26]just, I can always do better. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
[28:32]Listen, I, my first novel, my first novel, this will reveal me, my first novel got me 24 rejection
[28:39]letters. There were only 20 publishers. I got 24 rejection letters, which means some people were
[28:44]writing me twice to make sure I got the point, right? Like, dear Brad, in case you missed our first
[28:48]rejection letter, that book was really terrible. Here's another. And, you know, I look back on the
[28:53]experience and I don't look back and say, I was right and they were wrong and high on them.
[28:57]You know, I look back and just realized life is subjective. And whatever it is you choose to do,
[29:02]whether you're a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, stay at home, whatever you do, like, don't let
[29:08]anyone tell you no. Don't let anyone tell you no. I can tell you that when I got my 23rd and 20,
[29:13]this will be the most revealing thing. This will tell you exactly who I am. This is my bit of crazy.
[29:19]So when I got my 23rd and 24th rejection letter, they were actually in my heads supposed to be
[29:24]acceptance letters because they told me 22 people rejected the book, but 23 and 24, they love the book
[29:29]and they want to meet with you. So I was like, awesome. So I, at that point, I had so many
[29:34]college loans to pay off. I had law school loans to pay off. I was just in debt up to my years.
[29:38]And money was really hard for my family growing up. So I was like trying to dig out of this debt.
[29:42]My agent tells me at the time she says, wait by the phone. This is like pre cell phone
[29:47]days. She's like, wait by the phone. I'm going to call you with the offers for the 23rd and 24th
[29:51]person. And I was like, great. My phone's going to tell me how rich I'm going to be and how I'm
[29:54]going to get out of this debt that I'm under. And I'd wait by my phone and the phone rings and I
[29:59]pick it up. And.
[30:00]And instead of saying, like, here's what the advance is,
[30:02]or here's how much money you made,
[30:04]I pick up the phone and my agent says, sorry, kiddo.
[30:07]And my stomach just bottoms out from under me.
[30:09]I'm devastated.
[30:10]And to this day, to this day, every single day
[30:15]before I sit down to write, we all have kind of our things
[30:17]that we do, our little rituals.
[30:19]Every single day that I sit down to write,
[30:21]I replay that exact moment in my head.
[30:24]I replay that the phone that I was holding,
[30:26]which is one of those clear C-3 ones
[30:27]where you could see the wires,
[30:28]because that seemed like high-tech at the time.
[30:30]I replay and imagine that for my good desk
[30:33]that was on my left-hand side,
[30:35]and the swivel lamp that every college kid has,
[30:37]on my right-hand side, I picture the bed
[30:39]with just a box spring that was no headboard
[30:41]because we're in everything like that.
[30:42]I picture the balcony that I'm standing and looking over,
[30:45]and there's a fire station with three little doors
[30:47]that are right there.
[30:48]And I literally close my eyes,
[30:50]and I see those three doors,
[30:51]and I say to myself, sorry, kiddo.
[30:54]And I say it for 20 years now,
[30:57]because I never want to think I made it.
[30:59]I never want to think I'm ever as hungry
[31:01]as I was when I was in my 20s.
[31:02]I never want to ever think that I'm somehow like,
[31:05]have finished and I'm done
[31:06]because the moment I do and think I've made it all,
[31:09]I'm finished.
[31:10]So every day for 20-something years now,
[31:14]sorry, kiddo, sorry, kiddo, sorry, kiddo.
[31:18]Like, that's my magic trick.
[31:20]And it just brings me back to appreciate
[31:22]every single day exactly what I have,
[31:24]because I go back and look when I had nothing.
[31:27]And that is my advice is like, hold on to that.
[31:30]Like those hard times will eventually be the good old days.
[31:33]Wow.
[31:34]Well, at least we know you're not getting a big head
[31:36]about all this success here.
[31:38]Like, so one thing I've been obsessed with history
[31:40]is like, you can't help but like, know it.
[31:43]You know, I know my history.
[31:44]I know where I come from.
[31:46]Like, I never want to ever be anywhere but there.
[31:48]Wow.
[31:49]Well, Brad, thank you so much for sharing
[31:52]all of this whole backstory and all of your advice
[31:54]and inspiration and everything.
[31:56]I really, really appreciate it.
[31:59]No, thank you.
[32:00]And I'm going to send you some story times too,
[32:02]because I think your kids will like them.
[32:04]They're really funny.
[32:05]I'll send you something.
[32:06]Oh, I would love it.
[32:07]Thank you.
[32:08]Thanks so much for doing this.
[32:09]Thanks, Brad.
[32:10]Thank you.
[32:10]You've been listening to Moms Don't Have Time
[32:12]to read books with Zibi Owens.
[32:14]Please make sure to sign up for my newsletter
[32:16]at zibiowens.com to get more updates about episodes
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[32:41]You can follow me on Instagram at Moms Don't Have Time
[32:44]to read books.
[32:45]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[32:47]for the Sound Editing.
[32:49]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[32:50]for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.
[32:53]Thanks for listening.
[32:54]You could always email me at zibiatzibiowens.com.