Kate DiCamillo

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Four, five, six summers ago, father and son were walking down the block and boy, he was maybe five or six years old and his father was walking up ahead of him and the kid was staring at something and then he shouted to his dad, "Wait, dad, this is important." And I thought, boy, that's it in a nutshell. We walk past the important things all the time. When you read a story by beloved author Kate DiCamillo, you can count on two things. You will cry and the story will end exactly as it's meant to end. Always hopeful. Sometimes reading Kate's books and honestly even talking with her can feel like a spiritual experience. She helps you really see the world, all of its beautiful and terrible pieces and people. Kate, a two time Newbery medalist and former US National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, embraces a childlike view of the world, but always imparts the wisdom of life experiences. The results are unforgettable, emotional, sometimes magical and always heartwarming journeys.

Kate DiCamillo: If I've done my job right and put my heart and my fears and my questions on the page, I feel like if I've told a story right and well, those things are there. The reader can be aware of me asking those questions, worrying those worries, putting my heart there. And then it's a place for both of us to be together and it makes you feel less alone as a kid.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Kate DiCamillo is a writing legend. She's written classics such as 'Because of Winn-Dixie,' 'Tiger Rising,' 'Flora and Ulysses,' and so many others. Today we get to sit down with her and learn more about how she uses hope to share darkness, how she stays connected with the child within and why the wondrous minds of children keep her inspired to this day. And with hope often comes bravery, which will leave you with just enough context to understand the unique reading challenge she shares with us at the end of our conversation. And full disclosure, we both get a little choked up during this interview. Turns out the cake can hit you in the feels, whether you are reading or talking. My name is Jordan Lloyd Bookie and this is The Reading Culture, a show where we speak with authors and reading enthusiasts to explore ways to build a stronger culture of reading in our communities. We dive into their personal experiences, their inspirations and why their stories and ideas motivate kids to read more. Why don't we start with you describing a little bit about what you were like as a child, as a young child, what life was like where you were.

Kate DiCamillo: So I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and then we moved to a small town in central Florida when I was six years old. And the move was ostensibly because of me and the fact that I kept on getting pneumonia in the winter times. And that I'm so old that that was when they still talk to geographical cures. So they said, go to Florida or go to Arizona. So that's what we did. We went to Florida. It was a really big thing in lots of ways because one, the difference between Florida and Pennsylvania was huge culture-wise. And two, because my father was supposed to move with the family and he didn't. So those two things... It used to be when I would go and talk to kids about how I became a writer. Those two things are critical because one, that big move and it was kind of like Alice down the rabbit hole going and experiencing a whole new culture. I remember I thought that ma'am was just a universal term of respect. I mean, I'd never even heard it before. Yes, ma'am. I thought you said it to men. I had no idea men and women.

Kate DiCamillo: And I remember the boy next door, Bradley Collins saying, I ain't gonna be able to come out and play tomorrow. And I didn't know what the word ain't meant. It was a whole new world for me. And it was also perfect for anybody who wants to become a storyteller because it was the South and I grew up on a dead-end street with three older widow ladies on the opposite side. And those ladies welcomed all the neighborhood kids onto their front porches to talk. And they were always available. And I learned to listen and I learned the value of story. And I also was like wondering about my dad and that absence. And so I was a shy kid. I was a worried kid. I was a watchful kid. And I was a kid who knew that books were a part of what I needed and happily had a mother who facilitated that by reading to me and taking me to the library and buying me books. And also she was pivotal in helping me learn how to read.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Your mom sounds really wonderful. You said you were a worried kid. What was it that made you afraid or worried? 

Kate DiCamillo: You know, the older I get and the more you try to make sense out of yourself and I think that probably I'm just wired a little bit for anxiety and I'm wired a little bit to worry. But I just, as a kid, when your parent leaves... A therapist said this to me once and there are only two things that you can believe. Either there's something wrong with you or there's something wrong with your parents. And it is the rare child that will think something's wrong with my parents because that's too terrifying to even hold in your head. So then there has to be something wrong with me that he left, right? And so what did I do? I don't know that I was articulating it to myself that way, but I did think, what can I do to get him back? You do think that it's on you. And so I think that take a worried, anxious kid, have that happen. It just ramps it up more. Also, I was really, really shy, just like painfully shy. My mother, [chuckle] like there's nobody she wouldn't talk to. And she would say sometimes, "Run in there and ask so and so." And I'm like, "Run? Run in where and ask so and so what?" I'd rather die.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: And shoving you out of the car. [laughter]

Kate DiCamillo: Right, yeah. "Run in there and ask," it's like, huh. And then, I think about it, I'm kind of a contradiction in terms. I was really, I was a kid that was good at making friends and had good, strong friendships. And I'd love to laugh, you know, but it wasn't until I went and worked at Walt Disney World that I like learned to pretend not to be shy. And then that in turn helps you, you know, you pretend fake it until you make it, you know? So people don't know now how shy I am.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. Yeah. Kate, you came a little shy. So given your nature as a shy kid or just as a person in general, you said that you found that you needed books. Did you also always know that one day you wanted to write? 

Cassius: A different time again, where I'll ask... When I'm in front of a group of kids, I'll say, "How many of you have had a writer come in and visit your classroom before? How many have gone to a book signing at a bookstore and met a writer?" And 70% of the kids. And that just didn't happen when I was growing up. And nor was there a lot of... There wasn't a trend towards creative writing. So I learned how to write essays, and I remember writing some really bad poetry all to the dog. That happened. But it's like when I talk to kids, I say, "I didn't think it was something that human beings did. I don't know why." To me, books were so magic that I just didn't think that it was something that somebody sat down and did, a human being. And so when I'm... I always used to feel when I would go in and talk to kids in a classroom, if I can get... If they can see me as a messy, small human being who does this magical thing, then my time here has been well spent because then they can see that anybody can do it if they want to do it. You don't have to be a perfect or superhuman. The more human you are and the more imperfect you are, the better your chances of being able to do this.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: When was like the moment that you said, "Okay, I know now. I wanna be... I wanna be a writer."

Kate DiCamillo: Well, I was a huge reader, and so when it came time to go to college, it's just like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. But if I major in English, then I get to read all the time, and so that's what I did. And without any thought about what the career would be, then I, in my senior year of college, I had a professor say to me, "You have a certain facility with words, you should consider graduate school." And because I was young and arrogant, I don't know. [chuckle] I just thought he was trying to tell me that I was really talented and that...

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: He was.

Kate DiCamillo: Yeah. Well, I don't think that he was, I think he meant exactly what he said.

[laughter]

Kate DiCamillo: I had a certain facility with words and I could go and explore that more, you know? But I thought, well, if I'm so talented, oh boy, why should I go to graduate school? I'll just go be a writer. And so I just... I got a black turtleneck and I told everybody I'm a writer and I read books on writing and I dreamed about being a writer and I worked at Walt Disney World and I worked at Circus World and I worked in a greenhouse and I said, I'm a writer, I'm a writer, I'm a writer. And then when I turned 30, I thought, "Wow, I can just spend the rest of my life saying I'm a writer and not actually do anything." I had this slide in the PowerPoint for when I turned 30 that I had kind of like a eureka moment where I realized that it was easier to do the work than it is not to do the work. And I have found that that thought resonates with adults and it does not resonate with children. They don't get it yet. But to me, it's everything. It's like so much easier just to sit down and do this thing than it is to talk about it and dream about it. It's exhausting. It's easier just to do the work.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah, to feel like you did something that day.

Kate DiCamillo: Right. And I know why so many of us don't sit down and do the work, it's because we're afraid that the work's not gonna be any good or actually this thing that we thought we wanted to do, we can't do. And my way around that was when I actually sat down and by the time I started, I was young, I was still like running every day, two miles. It's like I'm not, I had no dreams of becoming a professional runner, yet I could make myself do that every day. And I thought, "What? Okay, I'll make myself do two pages a day." And that helped me with the fear that as soon as I get up... As soon as I get to two pages, I can get up. And it doesn't have to be, it just has to be on the page. It doesn't have to be good. I just have to do it. And that helps me talk my way through. It's still the way I work, you know? 

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: While Kate knew she was bound to be a writer, it wasn't clear to her that she'd become a children's author. That realization came after working in a book warehouse.

Kate DiCamillo: It was like something out of a Dickens novel, kind of. It had better health through better plumbing painted on the side of it because it used to be a plumbing parts warehouse.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: It was at this job that she began writing and publishing short stories for literary magazines. Kate worked at the warehouse as a picker, fulfilling orders. This meant she was exposed to different genres and styles of books than she would usually gravitate toward for her own reading pleasure. She decided that if she was going to be picking these books out for orders, she may as well read some of them. Often being in the children's section, she started with picture books and then moved her way up to children's novels. It was one of those books that launched Kate into writing for children. Christopher Paul Curtis's novel, The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963. The book tells the story of a Northern black family who witnesses a church bombing while visiting family in Alabama. While the subject matter is almost impossible to bear, the story itself is funny and incredibly human.

Kate DiCamillo: I just was so moved by the funniness and the warmth and you're dealing with a really huge, huge thing, it's there on the page, Birmingham, 1963. That was when I started when Dixie was pretty soon after I consciously thought I want to try and do something like this.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 was the first book that really opened Kate's eyes to the power of children's literature. And side note, it was also one of the first books that I taught as a seventh grade language arts teacher. But there was another book that affected Kate so strongly that it still impacts her approach to writing to this day.

Kate DiCamillo: Charlotte said, Wilbur, after a while, "Why are you so quiet?" "I like to sit still," she said. "I've always been rather quiet." "Yes, but you seem especially so today. Do you feel all right?" "A little tired, perhaps, but I feel peaceful." Your success in the ring this morning was to a small degree my success. Your future is assured. You will live secure and safe, Wilbur. Nothing can harm you now. These autumn days will shorten and grow cold. The leaves will shake loose from the trees and fall. Christmas will come. Then the snows of winter. You will live to enjoy the beauty of the frozen world. For you mean a great deal to Zuckerman, and he will not harm you, ever. Winter will pass. The days will lengthen. The ice will melt in the pasture pond. The song sparrow will return and sing. The frogs will awake. The warm wind will blow again. All these sights and sounds and smells will be yours to enjoy, Wilbur. This lovely world. These precious days.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: EB White's Charlotte's Web is a literary classic. White has been an inspiration for countless authors. You may even recall our interview with Meg Medina where she also read a passage from EB White. For Kate, the story of Wilbur and Charlotte helped her understand a key concept that is essentially at the heart of all of her work, light and darkness.

Kate DiCamillo: Every word of that tells you the truth and also promises you that things will be okay. And it is something I go back to again and again, and I did tear up. I don't know how many times I've read those words and read them aloud. Once I was on the radio in Australia and I started to weep and could not get a hold of myself. But even now, it was just like I need those words so much, you know? So a kid needs them, too.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Did you read Charlotte's Web as a kid? 

Kate DiCamillo: No, I read Black Beauty and I was so destroyed by what happened to that horse that I really did not want a book. This is the great irony when you think about my books. I didn't want a book with an animal on the cover. And I remember looking at Charlotte's Web in the spin rack of the library, you know, the Newbery paperbacks, and I looked at Wilbur's face and thought he looked so worried. And I thought something terrible is going to happen to the pig. I'm not going to have anything to do with it. So I made it all the way through childhood without reading it. And it wasn't until I was in a class for writing for children and the teacher said, "You can't write for children without reading that book." And then she quoted the first line. Where is Papa going with that axe? 

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. Oh, my God. [laughter]

Kate DiCamillo: Yeah. And I thought it's even worse than I thought. We're bad. We're bad.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You look exactly what I said.

Kate DiCamillo: See? We're like, we're leading with the axe. So then I read it and I've reread it every year since.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: When our kids were much younger, we used to take an early morning walk to pick up breakfast on the weekend. One of those times they were playing around the eating spaces of the other closed restaurants on the Strip. I was looking for them to leave and I saw Cassius chatting up a gentleman without a home who was keeping dry under the store awning. And the man gave the kids fist bumps to say goodbye. And then he yelled after me. He said, "Hey, Mom, your kids really saw me. Nobody ever does that. They're beautiful." That memory now makes me think of something I once heard Kate say. She said, "Kids know it all and they see it all." She's right. They are wise and innately kind and they notice everything and everyone. So when it comes to writing for kids, Kate feels it's critical to reach back to the keen perception and the acute sensitivity of her own childhood. This is a concept she's spoken a lot about throughout her career. I wanted to learn why connecting with her kid self is so important to her and how that shows up in her work.

Kate DiCamillo: It lets me comfort that kid that I was and also comfort the adult that I am and remind the adult that I am of what it means to pay attention to everything because, we just... Oh, it's like, "Oh, I've got to pay this bill. I've got to do that. It's like the dog has to get to the vet. But you just, you forget to pay attention." And the writing lets me do that. And then also when you're writing for kids, there's just, I think of it as peripheral magic. It's just, and to me it's associated with the borrowers. Do you know the borrowers? Little tiny people that live in the floorboards of your house.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I know.

Kate DiCamillo: They're great books. Mary Norton, a British author. So you can be walking through your house and you can see something moving out of the corner of your eye. And if you are a kid who's read those books, you think, "Oh, it could be a borrower." And writing for kids lets me get into that part of my brain again, where something miraculous is taking place. I can feel it. If I just turn slowly enough, I'll be able to see it, you know? 

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: And there's so many like very small details on a lot of your books. Just little things. I mean, are you keep constantly in that notebook you referenced, are you constantly keeping a note that'll just, this'll just fit in somewhere. The light will hit something this way or whatever, you know, like, are you just kind of keeping those things and those are your noticings or how is that happening? 

Kate DiCamillo: It's a really interesting question because it works two ways. One, I have the notebook where I keep like character names that pop into my head or just a small situation or something that I saw that I think will turn into a story one way or another. But then like when I'm working, things will come up that I didn't anticipate at all. And it's like, "Oh wow. Okay." And then in that afternoon book, I mean, slowly again, out of the corner of my eye, this seems to be something I'm always out of the corner of my eye, I'm thinking, "These small details are really meaningful and I don't know why, but they're going to coalesce into a pattern." So in that afternoon book, sometimes I'll just do a running list of these are the things that are in the story so far and I'm not really sure why. And I'm not gonna ask why, but these details is kind of like a connect the dot a little bit. I'll be, if I don't look at them directly for a while, I think that they will coalesce into a pattern or a constellation. Does that make sense? 

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah, it does. And I think that's very interesting. And I mean, and I do think it's like you're using all these different methods of capturing like a child, wonder. And to like dig in, you're noticing it, but then you're like, "Wait, let me notice it further because I said this is here, but what about it is here?" You know, it's kind of neat.

Kate DiCamillo: Yeah. And I always, when you were saying that the thing that pops into my head is just right on this block, I don't know, four or five, six summers ago, father and son were walking down the block and boy was maybe five or six years old. And his father was walking up ahead of him and the kid was staring at something. He said, and then he shouted to his dad, "Wait, dad, this is important." And I thought, boy, that's it, and in a nutshell, we walk past the important things all the time, but sometimes even in my adult brain, we'll be able to take them in and they'll get into the notebook or they'll get into the story because I saw it without even really being, making a note about it, but it's humming back there on the back of my brain.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. That really is it, isn't it? I've heard you say before that we're much more open to being seen as children than we are as adults. Children are, I guess, just less protective of themselves. Is that a feeling that you remember well, that childlike openness? 

Kate DiCamillo: In general, I think that the older you get, the more afraid you get, in all kinds of different ways. I can surely see that in myself. However, what I have to measure it up against is a childhood where I was afraid all the time too. So I'm just a kind of a fearful person, but I do know that I can tell you for a fact that even though I was afraid, I was also thinking really big thoughts and I'm not unusual in that. If you get a kid to articulate, if you sit and talk to them, if they feel safe with you, they'll tell you, they are thinking the big, big thoughts and those big thoughts, we get more and more afraid to think. And I don't know why, but we do, don't you think? 

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah, I definitely do. And I think we're also afraid, like I'm with my kids whenever they bring up, they're a little older now, but like 10 and 12, but whenever they ask certain questions, I sometimes myself don't wanna answer it.

[chuckle]

Kate DiCamillo: Right. It's funny just in me interacting with kids and signing lines, and also when I do Q&A in front of an audience, I'm always happy to say, "I don't know. I don't know that you have that much," as a parent, you have to probably know more, but a lot of times I'll say to kids, "I don't know, I'm wondering with you. I'm trying to figure it out with you." And that's the beautiful thing about a kid sitting with a book is if I've done my job right and put my heart and my fears and my questions on the page, inadvertently, I'd like to say, I don't sit down thinking that's what I need to do. But I feel like if I've told a story right and well, those things are there. The reader can be aware of me asking those questions, worrying those worries, putting my heart there. And then it's a place for both of us to be together and it makes you feel less alone as a kid.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: In 2018, Matt de la Peña, Newbery Medal-winning author, wrote an essay published in Time magazine titled, 'Why We Shouldn't Shield Children from Darkness.' In the article, he talks about questions he would ask Kate DiCamillo, if he were given the chance. He decides he would ask, "How honest should we be with our readers? Is the job of the writer for the very young to tell the truth or to preserve innocence?" Less than a week later, Kate responded. Her letter to him, also published by Time, was called, 'Why Children's Books Should Be a Little Sad.' Fittingly, the letter is a tear-jerker. She talks about knowing that bad things will happen. She quotes Charlotte's Web, just like earlier in this episode, and she comes to the conclusion that "Sadness will be okay, and we will be stronger," that in the end, life is hopeful.

Kate DiCamillo: I remember sitting there working on Winn-Dixie and thinking, "Oh, this is what I'm supposed to be doing." But I wasn't able to articulate exactly why. And I think part of it is that... And I hadn't read this at the time, but Katherine Paterson says it, "When you're writing for kids, you're duty bound to end with hope." And so, I didn't know that, but I guess I felt it. And so I like what that does to me as a writer and as a human being.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Of course, authors aren't the only adults with that responsibility. Given Kate's frequent peeks into school classrooms, I was also curious about her thoughts on how teachers carry that weight.

Kate DiCamillo: I constantly, and you know, and I haven't been as many classrooms or as many places in the last two years, yeah, but the letters still arrive. The letters arrive from the kids. I got one this weekend that I think I'm gonna... It was brilliant and just spelled in a way that I think I might have to take a picture of it because it was just like... But it was brilliant.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Side note, if you follow Kate on Facebook, she did end up posting this letter. It's a classic. And the killer lines are, 'I love the premise of Despereaux. It really shows me how all people are not bad.' And Winn-Dixie is a sign of how there is still kindness in the world.

Kate DiCamillo: I just was amazed during the pandemic, how many teachers wrote me and told me about reading aloud over Zoom and how they needed to do it. The kids needed it. Other kids in the household would come in and listen when they were reading. And if that's not love, I'm gob stopped by what teachers do. I'm amazed when I get a packet of letters and there are 35 kids in a classroom and the cover letter from the teacher, and she'll tell me individual things about this kid, that kid. And I think, talk about sacred work. I mean, she is seeing each one of those kids and reading aloud to them, paying attention to what they're getting from it. I mean, that's love in action.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I could not agree more. What were you going to say? 

Kate DiCamillo: Nothing. I'm just like crying. So it's just like it's deeply moving, and it becomes at the risk of sounding trite or overly poetic, it becomes this circle of, it's a circle of light and love and connection that happens. And when sometimes when I talk to a kid one-on-one and this happened during the pandemic too, I would zoom in a classroom or, and then the kids would get to come up to the camera and ask me their question one-on-one. And I would say, "Even if we weren't doing this, even if you never talked to me, never met me, I'm... It goes back to what I said in the beginning, I'm there with you and we're in it together and you can feel that it forms a bond. And that to me is one of the most powerful things about books. It's just like, I am very... The story is not complete until you're sitting somewhere reading it or hearing it read, then it becomes a story. So I need you as much as you need me," that's what I say to the kids.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: So that must feel amazing for you to have like so many books with so many millions of copies of... And then the... I mean, just the amount of people that have read your books and made them their own. And it's like this, it must just feel incredible to know that for you.

Kate DiCamillo: Yeah. It's back to the corner of my eye, right? I can't think about it too much or, I don't know, I feel like I won't be able to tell another story because I'll be so nervous about trying to please and trying to connect. And so I... This is my job, is to tell this story and then to be... Every time I'm with a reader or with a group of readers to be absolutely present.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I think it's cool because what you're describing that the teachers noticing, it's like the teachers are doing what the kids are doing. They're noticing each child, just like a kid's noticing the sidewalk when they're walking, that's so true. They really are just there and they, they know so much. We only taught for a few years, but these other, I mean, at least for my kids, teachers, I'm always just amazed at the things they'll notice in this big classroom of other kids about them.

Kate DiCamillo: Right, right. It's just, it's thank you teachers. And when I am in front of a large group of people, I like to take the time to like say how many teachers are out there and they'll raise their hands and then, "How many of you teachers keep your hand up if you read aloud to your class?" It always makes me cry. And I just think about it, and then I say that, "Let's give them a round of applause." They're saving lives is how I... Because one, you make somebody feel seen, two, you help them to connect to other people, connect to themselves. And three, just that thing of, I got it at home, but I still lived for it to happen in the classroom. So it's just like, what is it like for the kid who's not getting it anyplace else? 

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: The thoughtfulness and hopefulness in Kate's writing have continued to attract new generations of readers to her classics, like Because of Winn-Dixie and to her newer stories like The Beatrice Prophecy. Both of my children, Cassius and Florence, have read and loved many of Kate's books. I'm pretty sure I still remember some of the Mercy Watson stories by heart and how they used to beg me to make toast, Mercy's favorite, to eat whenever we read them aloud. I remember when Cassius read The Tiger Rising with a tutor during the pandemic. And when I came to check in on him during his Zoom, there he was wiping away his tears. They're just so enamored by the humor and the authenticity of her characters. And Flo loves the magic. Cassius wanted to ask a question.

Cassius: What is your inspiration for your characters, especially in The Beatrice Prophecy? And how do you think of the scary parts in stories like The Beatrice Prophecy? 

Kate DiCamillo: I'll start by going backwards and saying it's always a hard question to answer because so much of how I work is, I take a phrase or a name or just, you know, a little spark of an idea and then I don't know what's going to happen. So I don't map it out in advance. So it's always a process of discovery. And like when I wrote Edward Tulane, it was like great because when I went out to talk about it, I actually had the rabbit doll that somebody had given me in a paper bag. I would go up to the podium with my paper bag with this rabbit doll in it and then, say everybody always asks, where do you get your ideas? Here I have a physical display of this rabbit that was given to me. It's usually... I can't usually pull a rabbit out of a bag. So all of that said, where did it all come from? I started with a monk, moon, goat. I think those were the like... I don't know why I thought there was something there. I started there. And then what happened and maybe this will be interesting to him. I don't know. I wrote like 40 pages. I got to the point where, okay, there's... Beatrice has showed up. There's the goat, there's the monk. The moon never really plays a big part, but that was part of where I started. And it's like, oh, there's something here. I can see that. It's definitely a story I have to keep going.

Kate DiCamillo: And as I embroidered on that beginning, so I started over again, retype those pages, kept going more and more like Jack Dory. Where did Jack Dory come from? I don't know. And it's just this whole thing of like slowly realizing that this is a world where it is the most dangerous thing in the world for a girl to do, is to be able to read and write. And where did that come from? Well, there's plenty of places in the world where you can find that going on right now. But there was also a deeper thing that I can see after the fact where I... My father wanted to be a writer when he was growing up and he was not super supportive of me being a writer and he said some things to my brother about the female brain and what it could and couldn't do. And I think that subconsciously, you know, he wanted to silence this part of me, the part that... And so that, so I'm going down strata after strata without even being aware of it and pulling. And so, and as I pull it up deep out of myself, all these other things cling to it, seahorses and mermaids and I don't know, and Cassius is not going to appreciate the amorphous answer there, but it's the truth.

Kate DiCamillo: And also it's this thing where, for anybody who wants to write a story, if you sit down and like try to get out of the way of your own ego, the story will find a way through you. And so I think that's a relevant thing. If you have something that you want to say, something that you think can be a story, sit down and work on it slowly and it will find itself if you keep on showing up and doing the work and doing the work of not trying to write it to impress somebody, but rather to speak to the deepest part of yourself, which will then end up speaking to the deeper parts of other people there. Yeah. Are you rolling your eyes at me? 

[chuckle]

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: No, I'm saying... I'm thinking... What I'm thinking right now is that I think you write you, it's like everything comes back to a way of like... I guess every writer is looking inward and maybe some way writing about themselves. Like you said, like different things are showing up. But I do think that like that way that you're able to look at things with this lens, even your process of writing, of letting it happen, of letting it come through you. I think that's like antithetical to the way that a lot of adults handle life and things and projects and everything is mapped.

Kate DiCamillo: Yeah, right. It's antithetical to me. It is the only place that I have learned to be patient. It's the only place where I have learned to really get out of my way and not try to control things, 'cause I know if I try to control it, I'm going to mess it up, so it is just, but I will say that learning that on the page has also translated into... So it's not at all an overstatement to say that writing has changed me as a human being and made me a different, better human being. The process and also connecting to readers, so...

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. May I ask, is your father alive? Is he alive still? 

Kate DiCamillo: No, he died two years ago, three years ago. We were estranged. We didn't talk and him passing lets me talk more easily about all of that. You know, it's like my best friend that I grew up with said, "Every interview that you give now, you show more and more of yourself," and I think it's because I feel safer in the world. Yeah.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Knowing that he's not going to hear it, going to know those parts of you.

Kate DiCamillo: And in general, yeah, just, I feel safer.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: But you know, it's like Barack Obama always said, that he wrote, like he was always writing to fill the void of this absent father. I don't know, but it feels like you're... It feels like instead you wrote a lot about your mom. I feel like [chuckle] your mom is kind of present in a lot of the books or someone's mom. Even though a lot of parents are gone in a lot of the books, but there's like this loving adult presence that I was speaking about earlier.

Kate DiCamillo: Right.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: So I see that, you know? 

Kate DiCamillo: That's an interesting point and it's also, I don't have enough overview yet to say this, but it's interesting that, I might've started from a place of absence, but I have... I feel like I've written toward wholeness and every book gets me closer. And again, that goes two things. It's like, it's something that's happening to me personally on the, on the page as I'm telling the story, but then it happens when it goes out in the world and I get to connect with people through the story. So it's like less and less writing from absence, and more and more writing towards that wholeness.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: What does it mean to be brave? This was the question that brother Edick asked himself as he walked through the dark woods with Jack Dory, Kanak and Anzuelica. To be brave is not to turn away. To be brave is to go forward. To be brave is to love. These are words from Kate DiCamillo's most recent novel, The Beatrice Prophecy. Bravery is a theme that shows up in many of her books and Kate developed her reading challenge for this episode around it. She's compiled a selection of books with bravery as a theme for her challenge, Read Brave.

Kate DiCamillo: Reading itself, the act of reading helps me to be brave. There are so many different ways to be brave. And so this list has outright a flashy bravery and it has subtle bravery and it has just the bravery of being yourself in the world. I did one from my childhood that meant so much to me, which is the original Paddingtons. It's all these different iterations of braveness that... Lois Lowry is the giver being brave enough to see. There's one for me on there with Despereaux, who is afraid of everything, kind of like me, but is brave in spite of his fear. I've talked to kids, not just about my books, two stories pop into my head. One, a little girl who told me she kept Winn-Dixie by the bed just in case she woke up in the middle of the night and she was afraid and she would just randomly read a passage and a Tale of Despereaux because it's like... I've had an adult say, 'cause now I'm old enough that some of the people who read these books when they were kids are adults. And I go back to that even as an adult because it helps me to feel less afraid. And so I just thought, let's find out all the ways to be brave through reading.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: And now we get to this episode's Beanstack Featured Librarian. Today we're highlighting Pat Toney, a librarian who told me her mantra is stay ready so you don't have to get ready. Amen.

Pat Toney: My name is Pat Toney. I'm a children's services librarian at Oakland Public Library in California. A book I like to recommend to teens is 'The Firekeeper's Daughter' by Angeline Boulley. It's a book that stuck with me. It's got a lot of passion and power. I love the story about the strength of women in the family as well as the modern-day tale of Native Americans. And after reading Tommy Orange's, 'Here Here,' I think it's just great to provide more information about modern-day native society. That's what I really like to recommend for teens.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: This has been The Reading Culture. You've been listening to our conversation with Kate DiCamillo. If you've enjoyed today's show, please show some love and rate, subscribe and share The Reading Culture among your friends and networks.  In fact, if you do, you’ll have taken most of the steps necessary to enter a special contest we are running from December 13 - December 23. Check out thereadingculturepod.com for more details on how you can win a set of all of the books Kate DiCamillo recommends in her Read Brave challenge! Again, I'm your host, Jordan Lloyd Bookey. And currently, I'm reading Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng and A High Five for Glenn Burke by Phil Bildner. This episode was produced by Jackie Lamport and Lower Street Media and script-edited by Josiah Lamberto Eakin. Thanks for joining and keep reading.