Maria Russo, HOW TO RAISE A READER
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast,
[0:11]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Thanks so much for listening to my podcast.
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[0:53]I loved interviewing Maria Russo. Maria is the former children's books editor of the
[0:58]New York Times Book Review. She and Co-author Pamela Paul wrote How to Raise a Reader,
[1:03]which is like right up my alley. We had so much to talk about, and even came up with this
[1:08]great idea, I think, of a new business, and it was just great to talk about someone who was
[1:12]equally passionate about reading and getting our kids to read, and all the rest. So enjoy.
[1:17]Welcome, Maria. Thanks so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[1:21]Hi, Zivi. Thanks for having me.
[1:23]Oh, it's my pleasure. How to raise a reader. This is one of the things on my mind all the time.
[1:29]I have four kids, and I am constantly trying to figure the answer out to this, and you've done
[1:35]it. You've written the book on it. Tell me about the book. What inspired you to write this book?
[1:41]Tell me more about it. Well, as you say, I'm a mom too. I have three kids, and my Co-author,
[1:48]Pamela Paul also has three, and there we were at the New York Times Book Review, thinking about
[1:54]this subject all the time, really, in our personal lives and in our work life, right? Because I was
[1:59]the children's books editor. She was and is the editor, but had previously been the children's
[2:05]books editor. So we just, a lot of people ask us questions all the time. There's just a constant,
[2:12]you know, question in the air, exactly as you say, how do I raise a reader? How do I get my kids
[2:18]to read? How do I support my kids reading? And what are the best books for my kids to read? Which
[2:23]actually is, you know, we'll talk later about, in some ways, that's the most challenging question
[2:29]for parents. You know, the other stuff can be, I think, fairly easy and joyful. You know,
[2:35]it's the idea that to raise a reader, that reader actually has to have access to a lot of different
[2:42]good books is actually where the job of the parent comes in. So yeah, so we just, you know,
[2:48]we just, you know, we started, it started out as a small digital project that we did for the times
[2:54]called also how to raise a reader. First, it was a special thing for New York Times subscribers,
[2:59]only kind of a little extra, and it really took off. It really went viral. We got lots of
[3:05]reactions and, you know, probably the most common reaction was, when will this be a book?
[3:12]Because people wanted to hold it in their hand and, you know, it just occurred to us. It's a
[3:16]natural. It's really obvious. I wish I had this book when my first child was born, you know, I was
[3:23]on the older side and even though I'm, you know, I've been a bookish person my whole life, I was,
[3:28]you know, my career has been in books. You know, I didn't know that much about children's books
[3:33]and about reading to children, reading with children. There's so much information that parents
[3:40]aren't really getting, even even the most booky among us. So it just seemed, you know, I just
[3:47]my, my immediate vision was like this is a baby shower gift. You know, this is the book I wish
[3:53]I had at my baby shower and I think every, every parent would want, you know, really just as
[4:00]you're even just getting ready to, to bring this baby home and into your family. So it just kind
[4:05]of took off from there and, and it's just been this really, you know, surprisingly smooth and
[4:11]and kind of joyful adventure, you know, to do this book because everyone, you start talking about
[4:17]the subject and people light up, you know, people have happy memories and happy, you know,
[4:22]associations around their children's books. But at the same time, as you say, you know, there's
[4:29]a little bit of worry. There's a lot of anxiety too. So I feel like we're also able to help a little
[4:35]bit with the anxiety that that all of us as parents are feeling now. So true. And books being a
[4:43]resource for me and probably for you during this time has been so key. All I want to do is give
[4:48]that resource to my kids and let them like take comfort in it the way that I have my whole life,
[4:52]but that it doesn't necessarily automatically happen that way. Right. It's, it's, you know,
[4:58]it's not as automatic as a lot of us, lifelong readers think for a lot of kids, you know, for
[5:04]some kids it is. And, you know, your job as a parent is to get to know your individual kid and
[5:10]then provide the right atmosphere so that that kid can choose reading automatically. But, you know,
[5:16]I think probably in some ways are one of our most powerful tips, which actually comes from research,
[5:24]is simply have a lot of books in your home. I mean, this is, you know, actual research show that
[5:30]children who grew up in a home with a substantial amount of books, I mean, I can't remember the exact
[5:36]number, were more likely to become lifelong readers and to be successful in other areas of life,
[5:43]you know, and, you know, this was a study that was controlled for income and education. So this
[5:49]wasn't just about, you know, affluent bookish literary people raising readers like they are. This
[5:56]was something that they identified that has to do with the presence of physical books in a child's
[6:01]life is a good thing. And so that's something that you can do as a parent. You can fill your house
[6:09]with books, you know, and, you know, we do point out it's children's books, you know, obviously
[6:15]that your kid, you know, books you know they like, things you think they might choose and like,
[6:20]but also adult books, you know, it's really important for your child to see you reading. And,
[6:27]you know, one of our, one of our kind of maxims in the book that we say a lot is and not to be
[6:34]judgy or anything like that, but just, you know, making people recognize if you want to raise a
[6:40]reader, you really should be a reader, you know, and it so often happens when you become a parent
[6:48]and we're also busy, and it's just this on rush of new responsibilities when that baby
[6:53]first comes, you can kind of let your own reading life slide out of the picture, right? And
[6:59]even if you were a big reader, a lot of people in that first year or even, you know, for years
[7:05]after when they kind of lose that connection to their own reading life, and that's not a good
[7:10]thing that you're doing for your children because as a parent, you know, they're watching you,
[7:15]they're looking at you and saying, you know, how does my mom or my dad, you know, how do they
[7:20]fill their hours? What does it mean, you know, to be a grown up? What do grown-ups do? And what
[7:25]do people do? What does life like in our family? You know, and if they see people picking up books
[7:31]sitting there and reading them, you know, or standing at the kitchen counter, reading while
[7:36]they make dinner, you know, just the idea that there's people reading books in their life,
[7:40]that's a message, and it's really, really deep and powerful, and it's easy, it's good, you know,
[7:46]if it could for you too, to reconnect to your own reading life, to the books that you love, and,
[7:50]you know, I mean, this is another one of our big messages in the book. It doesn't have to be
[7:56]more in peace that you're reading, you know, I like self-help books. I like gardening books,
[8:02]you know, I like comics, you know, to take the pressure off around reading for yourself and for your
[8:08]kids and find the time to just have that pleasure in their own life. And then, as you're saying,
[8:13]as your kids are wandering around the house, what should I do now, it's going to be more likely that
[8:18]that's an activity they would choose, you know, when they do have so many others, you know,
[8:22]screen-based options. It's like preaching to the choir, talking to you. It's like all the
[8:27]same stuff, I try to say myself, it's perfect. It's really great. And you said such great stuff
[8:32]in your book that I hadn't really thought about in the same way, like you say that you wish that
[8:37]there was a support system about raising, around raising a reader, which is such an interesting
[8:41]thing, right? Because you have to be deliberate in how you do all of these things, right? You can have
[8:46]a support system around helping your kids get a regular exercise, but do you, right? Do you
[8:51]think about it in terms of books you should? And you must. That's a great point. You know,
[8:56]that like the exercising, we don't think twice about, you know, calling a friend and like,
[9:01]oh, just, you know, so-and-so, I want to go to the park and play soccer with, you know, my kid,
[9:06]you know, I've done that. But do you call a friend and say, what book is your daughter reading now?
[9:12]You know, my daughter doesn't have anything at the moment. Any recommendations, you know,
[9:17]that's something we should do. You know, I do do that and find that happening naturally because
[9:23]of my job, right? So people do come to me. I'm constantly getting texts. What should
[9:28]tone sit my daughter read my son read? But anyone can do it, you know, and it's really just,
[9:34]it's also, for me, it's even aside from my job, I became very curious. Like, what is that kid reading?
[9:41]Maria, we should start a really cool app that's like good reads for kids. That's like something
[9:50]as cool as TikTok and they share the books and then like, like, I have to go research this now.
[9:57]There must be something out there or I should talk to the good reads.
[10:00]but there should be something that makes it cool
[10:03]and then they can see what their friends are reading
[10:05]and in the same way that like, you know,
[10:06]my daughter has to have like this exact hydro flask
[10:09]or she's like not cool or whatever it is.
[10:11]Like, they have to read these same books.
[10:12]Like, I don't feel like there is that kind of zeitgeist
[10:14]around books right now for kids.
[10:16]I love that idea.
[10:17]I mean, I feel like if it was good reads,
[10:19]it would be associated with the mom.
[10:21]Like, it has to be something cool.
[10:23]It's old.
[10:25]Yeah.
[10:25]And I think that in little micro communities of kids,
[10:29]it does happen.
[10:30]You know, like you said, you know,
[10:32]like did your daughter go through the rain
[10:33]and tell them I are phased?
[10:35]Yes.
[10:35]Okay.
[10:36]When she was reading those books,
[10:37]I promised you all of her friends were too
[10:40]and they were trading them and talking about them, you know?
[10:44]So they weren't posting them.
[10:46]Right. Exactly.
[10:47]So if you could find a way that they would then connect
[10:50]to kids outside of their own little friend group.
[10:53]Right. How neat would it be if they could connect
[10:54]to somebody in like, you know, Texas,
[10:56]who's reading the same book right now
[10:58]and they could have like a little chat.
[10:59]I mean, they're like, maybe I should get off this topic,
[11:02]but just all the kids,
[11:04]all my kids just want to be on social media in any form.
[11:07]Right.
[11:08]And if we could have their be an alternative
[11:10]to like YouTube life hacks that are maybe, you know,
[11:13]a niche, something cool.
[11:16]Like, I don't know why, why not?
[11:18]What about it?
[11:18]Why?
[11:19]Because it's okay.
[11:21]Right?
[11:21]I'm like totally excited about it.
[11:23]All right.
[11:24]Great. I needed a new idea today.
[11:25]Anyway, and then our kids could help
[11:27]and they could feel like on this approach.
[11:29]Yeah.
[11:29]I think what's in the way often, ideas like this
[11:33]is that people assume that reading is a drag for kids.
[11:38]And, you know, that's something that we're kind of trying
[11:41]to get at in the book and that I've been trying to get at
[11:43]as I talk to audiences.
[11:45]If you watch a kid with a Rainet Talk a Meyer book
[11:47]or a Whimpy Kid book or, you know,
[11:50]the new Katie Camillo novel,
[11:53]that's a happy kid.
[11:54]That's a kid who's enjoying what they're doing.
[11:56]Kids love their books, the good books.
[12:00]What they don't love is this atmosphere of pressure
[12:03]around reading and this atmosphere that the teachers
[12:06]and the parents have taken their reading
[12:08]and gotten in there and made it into something
[12:11]that's a performance for the adults to judge.
[12:15]You know, and the more we can take it out of that realm
[12:18]and I really think that as parents we can do this,
[12:21]you know, don't ask about your kid's reading level.
[12:26]Don't mention reading levels in your home.
[12:28]Reading levels are invented.
[12:30]There is no such thing as a reading level, you know.
[12:34]This is some system that, you know, someone came up with
[12:38]for some reason in the 1960s or 70s
[12:42]and they went through and they took all these children's
[12:44]books and assigned letters to them.
[12:46]You know, if you take 10 librarians, they wouldn't all agree
[12:48]what's an F and what's a K anyway, you know,
[12:52]but it's an easy way to, you know,
[12:55]keep the factory going of school and education
[12:59]and, you know, it's a way that kids can feel bad about themselves.
[13:03]If they're an F and their friend is a K, they feel bad.
[13:06]They feel lucky and why everybody learns how to read.
[13:10]Everybody progresses through their reading.
[13:13]You know, yes, some kids struggle more with it, you know,
[13:16]kids with dyslexia, kids with other disorders
[13:19]that we're only really starting to understand
[13:21]that affect the speed of their reading,
[13:24]like auditory processing disorder.
[13:27]I mean, I don't know if you know any kids that have this,
[13:29]but I have two separate kids who have been diagnosed with this.
[13:32]You'd never really know it, you know,
[13:35]in talking to them, you might notice a slight delay
[13:37]when you talk to them and how they respond to you,
[13:39]but this is very, very crucial when it comes time to learn
[13:42]to read because of phonics, because, you know,
[13:44]you're learning to read by associating sounds
[13:47]with those marks on the page.
[13:49]So these kids have an extra step of struggle.
[13:51]You know, and I mean, just kids with dyslexia,
[13:53]it's like heroic to me, how these kids,
[13:56]what they go through and how they eventually become readers
[14:00]by creating workarounds in their own brain.
[14:03]You know, this is why so many dyslexic people go on
[14:05]to greatness because what they've had to do
[14:07]just to learn how to read, it's truly, it's heroic.
[14:11]So, you know, all of this is stuff that makes kids
[14:16]subtly associate reading with this realm of life
[14:18]that is just not fun, you know, but it doesn't work to be.
[14:22]So if you can create something else in your home
[14:25]where books are fun, books are just like,
[14:27]oh my God, did you see the new dog man?
[14:29]Can you believe he named the character that, you know,
[14:31]or just stuff like that, you know,
[14:33]you're really doing your kid a big favor.
[14:35]Well, it's like, imagine if you went to a bookstore
[14:37]and saw all these great books and then somebody beside you
[14:40]was like, okay, yeah, but you can only read these three.
[14:43]You'd be like, what?
[14:44]No, why would I want to do that?
[14:46]I want to read all those there.
[14:48]Why won't you let me pick?
[14:49]It's like the locus of control is gone, right?
[14:52]Yes, exactly.
[14:53]And this is what people do to kids all the time.
[14:55]You know, I'm a huge fan of librarians
[14:58]because librarians actually are on the cutting edge
[15:01]of this stuff.
[15:02]They don't, they know, they know the research
[15:04]and they watch kids and there are many like brains
[15:06]in this country who are, you know, rebelling
[15:09]and refusing to shell their books by reading level.
[15:13]You know, it's happening.
[15:14]A lot of this that we've inherited is just,
[15:18]it's almost like it just won't leave our consciousness
[15:21]that got in there in like the 60s and the 70s
[15:24]and people were all still responding to outdated ideas.
[15:29]You know, it's like another good one is like,
[15:31]you know, the idea that comic books and graphic novels
[15:34]are not real books.
[15:35]That doesn't, if your kid is really into reading
[15:37]only graphic novels, well, that's not really reading.
[15:40]That doesn't count.
[15:41]You know, that's ridiculous, you know,
[15:43]especially in this culture we're in.
[15:45]It's a such a visual culture, right?
[15:47]You know, when images and words work together,
[15:50]it's even more powerful.
[15:51]You know, and this again, like this was what was so great
[15:53]about doing this book was we got to really look
[15:55]at the research, the research shows that, you know,
[15:59]they do MRIs on the brains of kids who are reading.
[16:01]A kid who's reading a text with only words,
[16:05]you know, one side of the brain is really lit up
[16:07]and working and that's great.
[16:08]A kid who's reading a book with images and words together
[16:12]both sides of the brain are lighting up
[16:14]and interacting with each other.
[16:16]Like, that's even better for brain development, you know?
[16:19]This is why, of course, we have picture books
[16:21]at the early stages of a kid's life,
[16:24]but that doesn't end.
[16:26]Why would that end when they can read the words on their own,
[16:29]you know, and again, I think we've inherited this
[16:32]partly because it's really expensive to print pictures,
[16:35]you know, so in previous decades before, you know,
[16:38]the current technological revolution,
[16:39]it was just, they printed the books without pictures
[16:41]because it was too expensive to put the pictures in,
[16:44]but we got an idea, like, oh, now you're done
[16:45]with pictures, you're on to words,
[16:47]and that's really changing, you know?
[16:49]Like, variants know it.
[16:50]Some of the teachers, the more, you know,
[16:53]up-to-date teachers know this, you know?
[16:56]And, you know, but you still have parents who are,
[16:59]weren't they come to us worried?
[17:00]Like, my friend will only read graphic novels.
[17:03]What should I do?
[17:03]I'm like, great, give him good one.
[17:07]He's reading.
[17:09]Well, it's like you were talking about,
[17:09]you like reading gardening books.
[17:11]If somebody was like, you can only read gardening books
[17:13]with no pictures, that would not be fun.
[17:17]You need the context.
[17:19]I mean, I think it's good to mix it up, right?
[17:21]They can read all types of books.
[17:22]I interviewed him, which I didn't really like,
[17:23]Jean Yang, who wrote Dragon, who's,
[17:26]and he was amazing, he's an educator too,
[17:28]and he was awesome, and I had my son here with me
[17:30]while I interviewed him, and he was telling my son.
[17:32]He's like, oh, it's great to read graphic novels,
[17:34]but, you know, you don't have to only read,
[17:35]you can still mix it up, and that's great too.
[17:38]So you shouldn't feel bad about it, but varieties.
[17:41]That was always great, so I don't know if it's true.
[17:43]But there are parents who really kind of lean
[17:46]on the kids about the graphic novels
[17:48]or create this idea that, you know, okay,
[17:50]that's fine that you're reading that,
[17:51]now read a real book.
[17:53]Yeah, I think if they're reading, you know,
[17:55]thank goodness.
[17:57]You had this one quote in the book,
[18:00]you say, it's stressful to be a parent,
[18:02]it's stressful to be a person,
[18:04]but I've found that even in the most difficult moments
[18:06]on the most challenging days,
[18:07]I can usually read for a book and feel lifted up,
[18:09]return to myself.
[18:11]And days when I felt as though I have nothing left
[18:12]to give to my kids, I've been able to sit next to them
[18:15]and open a book.
[18:16]We start reading and the world looks different.
[18:18]I loved that.
[18:19]That was like, yeah, it's just so great.
[18:22]I mean, that's great, that it's, you know,
[18:25]reading helps us to connect to our inner life
[18:30]and to what's most important, you know,
[18:33]and I just think that that's why
[18:35]when your kids grow up and leave,
[18:37]sadly as they do and they will,
[18:40]the memories of reading with your kid
[18:43]can be some of the richest and most powerful memories
[18:46]you have because it's those moments
[18:48]when you just feel so connected
[18:50]and so in such a nice real way, you know,
[18:55]and so that's another one of the gifts that I think,
[18:57]you know, you can give yourself and your kid
[19:00]when times are hard is to sit with a book
[19:04]and to let yourself be reminded
[19:07]of the experience, the timeless experience
[19:10]of reading that you're gonna carry with you
[19:12]from your childhood to your old age,
[19:14]you will always have that, it's yours, you know,
[19:16]and you give you give it to your kids,
[19:18]then you're giving them that option too, you know,
[19:22]and it's really true, just even just as a parenting technique,
[19:26]you know, there are so many days where you just feel
[19:28]like a failure as a parent
[19:30]and I just haven't done anything right,
[19:32]I might, they hate my personality, you know,
[19:34]everything is, and then you pick up a book
[19:37]and you're just suddenly you're the person reading
[19:40]this incredible piece of magic, you know,
[19:44]and everything you just feel better.
[19:46]It's true, although I have to say,
[19:48]I went through this period of time,
[19:49]or I shouldn't say I went through it happens occasionally
[19:51]where I'm in one of these like sad moves
[19:53]or I'm so sleep deprived or overwhelmed or whatever
[19:55]and I am fighting back tears as I'm reading to my kids,
[19:58]so I've developed this strategy.
[20:00]This just helps anybody else where I count the letters
[20:03]in each word as I'm reading them.
[20:04]So if it's like, the tree is big, I would in my head,
[20:08]I would be like three, four, two, three.
[20:11]And then it would allow me to get out of my own mind enough
[20:14]that I could just like keep reading to the kids
[20:15]and stop crying.
[20:16]It's not pathetic.
[20:17]What am I noticing?
[20:19]Yeah.
[20:20]Well, there is also, I mean, the great thing
[20:23]about so many children's books is that, you know,
[20:25]the great ones are written for adults too, you know,
[20:29]especially picture books are meant to be read by an adult
[20:32]to a child.
[20:33]So if you're going to be a successful picture book,
[20:36]creator, your books have to speak to the adult too.
[20:40]Or they simply won't pick it up to read the title, right?
[20:43]So that's often the case that the adult is having
[20:46]an emotional experience that maybe the kid isn't at that moment.
[20:52]You know, I've had that too.
[20:53]And I'm always surprised by what makes my kids'
[20:56]cry versus what makes me cry.
[20:58]And yeah, I find it a little embarrassing sometimes.
[21:02]You know, when I'm crying and reading a book to my kid
[21:06]and my kid is like, you know, what?
[21:09]That's what I was like.
[21:12]But I didn't even try that any technique to stop it.
[21:16]I should.
[21:17]If you're in a desperate moment, like I have been
[21:21]try that.
[21:22]So Maria, how, like, how did you get to be where you are in life?
[21:27]Like, can you back me up to the beginning of this trajectory,
[21:29]even just like a quicker synopsis of how how did you end up
[21:33]as the children's book senator at the New York Times?
[21:35]And, you know, and post script, I just left that top last week
[21:41]and started a new job.
[21:43]And I saw that.
[21:43]Yeah, I'm actually editing picture books now.
[21:46]You know, I was at the New York Times for five and a half,
[21:48]wonderful years.
[21:49]And I love that.
[21:50]But, you know, this is another dream I have.
[21:52]Which is actually work on the books.
[21:53]So, yeah, it's a new in-panel.
[21:56]What's it called again?
[21:56]Asuna.
[21:57]It's called, well, the overall publishing
[21:59]artist called Astra Publishing House
[22:00]and the imprint picture book imprint
[22:02]that I work for is called Mine Edition.
[22:04]And it's actually an established brand
[22:06]and imprint in Europe started in Austria,
[22:09]Switzerland, France, lots of other countries.
[22:11]And the books are published in the US
[22:14]and they're beautiful.
[22:15]You know, very art, you know, art forward, as we say,
[22:18]very much about beautiful illustration
[22:20]and high quality book production.
[22:23]And so my job now is to expand this brand into the US
[22:27]and create more books by American authors and illustrators
[22:31]and create more awareness for the Mine Edition books
[22:34]in the US because they're really,
[22:36]they're really beautiful and great picture books.
[22:39]So, yeah, so that is a fun thing.
[22:40]But so, you know, I'm someone who has
[22:42]gone through several stages in my earlier.
[22:45]I've switched what I do a lot.
[22:48]Even though it's always been in the same basic area of books,
[22:53]you know, so I started out right after college.
[22:56]I went to graduate school and I did a PhD
[22:59]in American literature at Columbia.
[23:01]And I thought I would be a professor
[23:03]and toward the end of that, as I was finishing my dissertation,
[23:06]I just started to get this rumbling of a feeling like,
[23:08]I wanna work for, I wanna, I love writing
[23:11]and I wanna write for a bigger audience, you know,
[23:13]than when your class or something.
[23:15]You know, I love the teaching,
[23:16]but there is this other part of it,
[23:17]which actually determines the course of your career,
[23:20]which is publishing for other academic readers.
[23:23]And, you know, that just seemed like a bit of kind of a drag.
[23:27]And I wasn't sure I was up for it, you know.
[23:30]So, that was when I kind of made the transition into journalism.
[23:33]And that was great.
[23:35]You know, it's, you know, career changing is hard.
[23:37]It's not something that everyone wants to do, you know.
[23:41]And it's hard, I was in my late 20s and early 30s
[23:44]and I'm just starting out.
[23:45]So, you know, I, you know, I always say I got lucky,
[23:47]but I guess I also was really tenacious.
[23:49]Like, I just have a, I have a, I get a vision of where I wanna go.
[23:53]And I just, to get there, you know, so I, you know,
[23:57]grew up in a, I grew up in Queens in a book loving
[24:00]how I was, you know, my dad was an English teacher,
[24:02]my mom was a nurse.
[24:03]So, you know, not fancy people,
[24:05]but our house was filled with books.
[24:07]And that was, you know, my parents were readers.
[24:10]And that was, you know, again,
[24:11]so we're saying this was such a gift to me.
[24:13]So, you know, one thing that you can really keep in mind
[24:16]if you're, you know, as you're raising your kid
[24:19]and if you're worried about if your kid
[24:21]is gonna be a reader or do well,
[24:24]or even just, we might get you well in school.
[24:26]I mean, first of all, the studies show
[24:27]that kids who are independent readers do well in school.
[24:30]So if you're hovering over your child,
[24:32]he's not becoming an independent reader, you know,
[24:34]the meaning of child who actually chooses on his own
[24:37]to read, if you choose on your own to read,
[24:40]you're more likely to be someone who does well in school.
[24:42]Anyway, so my childhood just basically showed me
[24:44]that, you know, when books feel like home,
[24:51]that's a good thing because you get to school
[24:53]and school feels like home, you know?
[24:56]And that's, I think, kind of a key concept for me
[24:59]is that I have never felt kind of intellectually insecure.
[25:04]You know what I mean?
[25:05]Even though, you know, I, whatever,
[25:08]I, you know, I don't come from any kind of fancy background
[25:12]at all, but books are home to me, you know?
[25:16]And so that just really helped me at every stage
[25:20]of my career.
[25:21]So, you know, I also just, I really loved criticism
[25:26]of books too.
[25:27]So I love reading books and I love talking about books.
[25:29]I love the kind of writing that, you know,
[25:32]kind of gets into like, what is so great about this book?
[25:35]Or what is so bad about this book?
[25:37]Or why does, you know, what is appeals to this kind
[25:40]of person about this book?
[25:41]I just really love that.
[25:42]So that led me to criticism and, you know,
[25:45]I started writing reviews and eventually, you know,
[25:48]so much of when how you get where you want to go
[25:50]is just being really brave and like, you know,
[25:53]you meet someone who works in a place you want to work
[25:54]and you actually say, and this was really hard for me.
[25:57]Like, I would like to write a review for you.
[25:59]How do I do that?
[26:00]You know, so I just kind of had a series of encounters
[26:04]with people like that where I had to be really, really brave
[26:07]because I'm inherently actually a shy person
[26:10]when I first beat people.
[26:11]And so I could say that I was lucky,
[26:13]but also I just did it, you know, so that's why I ended up,
[26:16]you know, and also I liked the small canvas of the reviews.
[26:19]So I had a bunch, you know, for years,
[26:21]I've had many, many reviews in the New York Times
[26:25]and, you know, when I was not working there at Washington Post,
[26:28]I worked at the LA Times.
[26:29]You read one of my 800 or 1200 word reviews.
[26:32]I promise you that took me like a solid two weeks.
[26:36]I'm working almost, you know, a lot.
[26:38]I go over and over and over until every little bit of it
[26:42]is like how I want it to be.
[26:45]So that's also, I think, you know,
[26:47]so some of my, you know, I look back at my life
[26:49]and I work for it.
[26:50]Maybe that I haven't written the long books,
[26:52]I wish I had written because I've been so obsessing
[26:55]over like 1200 word pieces, you know,
[26:58]but that's kind of how it worked for me.
[27:00]And yeah, and then the more, you know,
[27:02]being around these children's books all day
[27:05]and in this atmosphere of journalism,
[27:07]where everything's probably quick.
[27:08]Everything, you know, the conversations don't tend to last
[27:11]more than, you know, 15 minutes.
[27:13]That would be like, you know,
[27:14]people will actually say,
[27:15]I have to get back to work.
[27:17]But is it talking about books or work, you know?
[27:19]So I just wanted to be in an atmosphere
[27:22]where you could talk about books
[27:23]and create things that lasted, you know, for a longer time.
[27:27]So anyway, so this is, that's the new journey I'm on now,
[27:30]which is to see how I like working in that.
[27:33]I'm sort of actually making the books,
[27:34]which is just a whole other.
[27:36]And it's just like, it's so incredible.
[27:38]These how hard people work, how much they care,
[27:41]how, you know, I'm in awe of illustrators, you know?
[27:44]So because I'm such a word person,
[27:46]you know, I've spent my life obsessing over 800 words
[27:49]of Liza.
[27:50]I just can't believe what they do,
[27:51]how well they do it, how natural, like,
[27:53]I'm just, I just, I get such joy from beautiful art
[27:58]and illustration.
[27:59]So now just working with illustrators
[28:01]has been, you know, the nice thing about this stage for me.
[28:04]But again, it's all part of the same part of my life
[28:07]where I'm just really about children's books
[28:11]and helping people find the good ones, you know?
[28:14]Because like I said, you're, you know, your job
[28:16]is not to teach your child to read
[28:19]or to keep track of your child's reading level.
[28:21]You know, your job is to create an atmosphere around book
[28:24]that's fun and joyful and spontaneous and lighthearted,
[28:29]even, you know, like as we said, like a gardening book
[28:31]is a book, you know, for kids,
[28:33]the equivalent would be the Guinness Book of World Records.
[28:35]That's a book, you know, for my younger son, you know,
[28:39]the NBA statistic book, the year 2019 and the NBA
[28:43]is on his, you know, that's a book, you know?
[28:46]So creating an open-hearted atmosphere around you
[28:49]printed matter, it just works in your kids' life.
[28:53]That's good, you know?
[28:54]So that's really been my passion now.
[28:57]It's just keeping the spirit of joy and acceptance
[29:01]around children's books alive, like whether I'm at the New York Times
[29:05]or now at my audition and after house trying to get
[29:08]some really good books out there into the world for kids.
[29:12]Just one last question.
[29:13]Do you have any advice to aspiring authors?
[29:15]Oh, yeah, okay.
[29:16]Authors of children's books.
[29:18]Whatever.
[29:19]You can't, it won't be, it doesn't have to be.
[29:21]You know, I just think that the stuff that comes
[29:26]from your deepest places, like your heart,
[29:29]is gonna be your best stuff.
[29:31]And you have to, it's gonna be always a process
[29:33]of going deeper and deeper inside yourself
[29:36]and kind of think, why do I wanna write this, you know?
[29:38]And staying true to that and don't listen to the naysayers
[29:43]when you know you're writing from a real place,
[29:46]just keep at it.
[29:47]And you're gonna get a lot of nose,
[29:49]you're gonna let people don't understand
[29:50]why you would wanna write about that.
[29:51]That's not acceptable, that's weird.
[29:53]Or that's boring.
[29:54]You know, stick with what you feel from your deepest place
[29:57]is your passion.
[29:58]Well, bad, thank you so much.
[30:00]Thanks for coming on mom's now time to read books.
[30:02]Bye.
[30:03]Thanks again for listening to my podcast.
[30:05]Moms don't have time to read books.
[30:07]If you liked this episode, please follow me on Instagram
[30:11]at zippyowens and at moms don't have time to read books
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