- Such a fan, man.
Well, I asked everybody to bring, like,
their favorite books.
I know it's very hard to pick a favorite book,
but what did you bring?
- You know, for me, when you don't have money,
books are a passport to the world, right?
They're like, they're this gift that let you see yourself
in new ways and they open you to new possibilities,
and I didn't have books in my house.
We had, as you, I had the library card.
So, these were my two library books.
My first two library books.
I brought "Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing" by Judy Blume.
- Yeah. - Right?
'Cause I was like, this gave me my love of reading.
- Judy Blume is a hit today.
- She's hit, and by the way,
I almost took "Are You There, God?
It's Me, Margaret,"
'cause I was like the one boy
who wanted to know how bras worked and everything was on,
you know. - You know what?
Clever boy. - I know.
And then what gave my love of writing was Agatha Christie,
'cause in those first chapters,
there was that question I've asked myself forever,
which is it's a dead body,
and I wanna know whodunnit.
- Oh my God. - That book changed my life.
- You've always been like that.
- I've always been obsessed with dead people, yes.
(Kelly and audience laughing)
- That says a lot.
Well, I hear you love storytelling
before you even like read books, right?
- Yeah, so my grandfather gave me my love of storytelling.
This was a story that my grandfather always told me,
and it would go like this.
Batman and Robin are in the Batmobile,
and in front of them on a cliff
is a white van with the Joker, the Penguin,
the Riddler, and Catwoman,
and then they caught him, and I would go, "Tell it again."
And he would go Batman and Robin are in the Batmobile.
It was like 30 words in that story.
- Yeah.
- But I loved it,
and I love my grandfather for realizing
that I love storytelling.
It means so much to me.
- Oh, I do that with my kids.
It's so funny, too, what kids will come up
when you ask your kids to tell a story.
First of all, it's a good stall tactic,
'cause they'll try and, like, make their stories so long
they never have to go to bed. - My whole life.
- Yeah, but it is interesting to see
what they come up with, as well.
- And in my house, trust me,
my kids are also critics because I write books,
so my daughter's like-
- They're all critics.
- That's not that good, Dad.
You need more razzmatazz.
I'm like, are you from the 1920s?
Razzmatazz? - Razzmatazz?
- I'm like, what is that?
- So, you're best known
as a writer of mysteries and thrillers,
so how did you start writing kids books?
- Yeah, you know what, much like you, I had kids,
and I wanted to write and give them
better heroes to look up to.
I was tired of them looking at people
who were famous being famous.
I said, how do I teach 'em kindness?
How do I teach 'em perseverance?
How to be a good person?
So, for perseverance, I did "I'm Amelia Earhart,"
the little girl who was unstoppable, right?
To teach creativity, I did " I Am Walt Disney"
who used his creativity to change the world.
To teach them how to fight back,
"I am Rosa Parks," "I Am Martin Luther King, Jr."
Chris Eliopoulos and I, our amazing artist,
just decided this is the best thing,
and right now I looked at what my kids need right now,
and they're anxious.
We're all anxious.
And so I said, we need to do our first book on self-love,
so we did "I Am Oprah Winfrey" to teach the lesson,
the lesson is in the book,
that if you wanna live your best life,
you gotta be your true self.
And we all need that lesson right now.
(audience applauds)
- I love that the books tell the backstory.
I love that it tells a bit of the backstory,
how they got there,
'cause we always see these people as like, oh man,
they have this, they have this,
and you don't think of, like, what got them there.
I think that's really cool.
- That that's the real secret of it, right?
We always show them when they're kids
and we always show them when they fail, right?
'Cause everyone you look up to,
whether it is Amelia Earhart or Rosa Parks or Dr. King,
they had moments where they were scared and terrified.
They didn't know if they could go on.
- Yeah. - But they do.
And Oprah Winfrey,
best story's, right?
When she's three years old in church,
she finds the power of her voice.
When she's a little girl, she hates the way she looks.
She sleeps with a clothespin on her nose
to make her nose smaller.
Her producers tell her her body's not the right type,
her skin is too dark,
and they tell her that she cares too much about people.
She finds, this is a true story.
Can't make this up.
She's reporting on this story.
- I believe that last part.
- I know you believe this, right?
- 20 years in this business.
- And they tell her,
she goes to cover a story about
a family's house who burns down,
and she, the next day, privately,
goes and gives the family blankets,
and the producer yells at her and says,
"You can't get involved in this story,"
and she says, "The story?
What about being a good human being?"
- Amen. - And I want my daughter
to learn that lesson.
No, I appreciate that.
Thank you.
I mean, but I want my daughter to know that, like,
they told Oprah your body's not the right size.
You don't look the right way.
- [Kelly] She defied the odds.
- You can't care, and there's no such thing.
The only person you have to be is you.
That is the greatest gift you give yourself.
- Yeah.
What I love about it specifically
is my kids are obsessed with, like, superheroes,
especially my five-year-old boy,
and so I am, too.
I'm 39, whatever.
But I love the idea, though,
that these are superheroes as well.
I love that series.
So, my kids have this series.
- I appreciate it.
- It's amazing, though,
to be able to teach them, first of all, history.
You're teaching so much at once
without them really even realizing it.
- Yeah, oh, then, that's right,
but they are superheroes.
They are.
I mean, I will put Rosa Parks again,
tell me that's not Wonder Woman, right?
Tell me that Abraham Lincoln is not Superman.
- But we don't teach it like that.
- Right, what we do with our heroes
is we put them on pedestals and we make them perfect,
and we do our heroes a real disservice
'cause they're all human beings, and, you know,
the series is called "Ordinary People Change the World,"
and everyone's like, oh, they're so amazing.
I'm like, no, no, they all, as I said
have moments where they don't think they can do it anymore,
and we're all ordinary people.
I don't care where you went to school,
how much money you made.
- [Kelly] John legend told us.
- Right? - Ordinary people.
- Change the world, right?
I mean, I owe him for that one now, I think.
But really, I tell it to my kids,
but I know one thing, I'm not that special,
and there were parents out there
who want the same thing for their kids,
so they build these libraries
of real heroes for their kids
and their nieces and their nephews, their grandkids.
I love that.
- It's clever, and it's good, and it's important.
So, thank you for that.
But, well, the books,
the books are powerful enough that many teachers
have actually started using them in the classrooms.
- [Brad] Yeah.
- Which is a big thing, 'cause my mom's a teacher,
and they usually make you stick to that curriculum
of what everybody does.
- Yeah, I love our teachers,
our teachers and librarians.
I mean, I've had, and of course they'll say, like,
we'll do a story time, and they'll send me a picture.
They watch our story times on YouTube.
But what I love is they'll show me pictures
of their kids dressed up as Jackie Robinson,
and here they are is Rosa Parks,
and here they are is Lucille Ball,
but the best one, we had a school in Chicago,
took our books and literally came to me.
They made a whole musical with just our books.
And there's a little Dr. King
and there's a little Jackie Robinson
and a little George Washington, Abraham Lincoln,
and I'm like, you made a musical?
- [Kelly] That's brilliant.
- I want tickets to this now.
Like, I was like, why didn't you invite us?
- Hey, that's actually a really good idea.
Like, on Broadway, you should one-word, one-third that, man.
I'm just saying, that's a great idea.
- So you get points on the backed for that, I'm guessing.
- I'm just saying that's a really smart, clever idea,
and then introducing it's like, I mean,
it's kind of what they did with Hamilton.
They used all these historical characters.
Like, you know what I'm saying?
But to do that in such a bigger,
broader way with all the, anyway.
We'll talk after. - When I went to see Hamilton,
I literally brought the George Washington book
and I gave it to Chris Jackson.
I was like, you're my George Washington.
So, yes.
- Oh my gosh.
I love that. I love that.
Well, that's why this next part is so unbelievable
and also infuriating.
Two of your books were banned
by a school district in Pennsylvania.
Children's books.
- I mean... - Two children's books,
but I'm like, what year is it?
- Right, and you should see my house.
So, I'm on Twitter,
and all of a sudden someone tells me, they're like,
"Brad, they banned 'I Am Rosa Parks'
and 'I Am Martin Luther King, Jr.'"
I'm like, you know, I mean, look at these.
This is clearly trying to, like, do some harm here, right?
- Clearly you're trying to just destroy villages.
- My wife was so pissed.
My wife is like, I'm gonna kill him,
and I'm like, but I was heartbroken, right?
She's murderer, right?
- Yeah. Yeah.
- You know our house now.
- That's a good yin and yang you have going on there.
- But the truth was I was heartbroken
'cause I was like, there are all these kids
that don't get that story now,
and when you look at that, I'm like, that's just crazy,
'cause I don't care where,
I know race is a hard subject, but-
- But when you shield them from it, nothing progresses.
- God bless. Right?
I mean, I tell my kids all the time,
I know it may be hard.
You don't shy away from it.
The only way is you gotta go through,
and we do our kids a huge disservice
if we don't discuss these issues.
- And we do ourselves,
because the next generation, you're not helping them.
Yeah. - That's it.
And these books are literally designed
to give your kids these lessons.
I have, you know, in the back of every book
there's a real photograph of the person.
So, you see this cartoon story.
And my friend told me this story.
So, he's white, his daughter's black, adopted,
and he says he gets to the last page of "I Am Rosa Parks,"
and he opens it,
and she sees the real picture of Rosa Parks,
and she says, "Wait a minute.
This really happened.
This really happened."
And he said,
and suddenly he was having the first real conversation
about race with his daughter.
He's like, I'm from a mixed family.
I know I should have this,
but this is the book that they banned, Kelly.
And I'm like, you must be kidding me.
So, the first thing we did, of course,
is we got in touch with local teachers.
We got in touch with, who are incredible, by the way.
No one fights like a teacher.
- Yeah.
You haven't met my momma.
- No, trust me.
We have similar moms, right?
- She's a Leo.
- And what you know we did
is we did what Rosa Parks taught us to do
and what Dr. King taught us do,
is protest.
We said, "Everyone, all the books on this,"
not just our books, books by Malala, Sonia Sotomayor,
the "Sesame Street" book, they banned, our books.
We said, "Go buy them all and protest."
There were 5,000 kids in that district,
and my goal, I want every banned book
for every kid in that district.
Fight back like Rosa Parks taught us.
- Yeah. (audience cheering)
And it's such a funny, tricky thing, too,
especially with certain age kids.
We'll mention puberty.
Is if you make it a red button,
I'm like, well, what's in that book?
I'm like, you know what I'm saying?
If I'm a kid, and you've banned the book,
I'm like now I wanna know what's in it.
- And who doesn't?
The moment you take it away
that publisher's like, you realize the sales just went up?
And I'm like, are we rooting
for all the books to be banned now?
What should we do? - No, but it's one of
those things where it's like, why?
Like, and it's good to question.
It's good to do all.
I think it's so important.