And I wanna give them heroes of kindness,
and compassion, and character.
You know, I was telling the audience before this act,
that we actually met because of our mutual friend,
Harlan Coben.
Yes. So, Harlan is my big brother,
because one, he's gigantic and two,
(Rachael and audience laughing)
all bald, handsome men stick together.
We have a...
Bald, handsome men gotta roll deep and tight, yes.
No, we love him.
You know what?
Handsome men don't need hair.
Listen, I saw a thing that said online
and it said that a sign of masculinity was a bald head,
and I was like, I have never been more masculine
in my whole, entire life.
The gun show.
Brad gives us the gun show.
Thank you for cheering for my lack of hair.
I appreciate it.
Best cheer I've ever gotten.
It's so fun just to be with an audience.
I'm so happy.
I'm literally so happy that I'm dressed.
Like everybody.
My wife is like, you're not worth clapping for.
Wait, till you meet my daughter.
She's gonna be like,
you're definitely not worth clapping for.
Hey, is that how you got into writing for kids too?
I mean, that's such great messaging.
I am Oprah Winfrey.
I mean, you can imagine where this story goes.
But it's just so
I mean, it's so well done and it's such an honor
to be back here
next to Micheal Alcindor,
who I watch every day that she's on the morning news.
But what was the inspiration for this?
Was it to talk to your own kids
or to talk to the next generation? Or?
We had kids and I was tired of my kids
looking up to people who are famous for being famous
and thinking that's a hero.
I was like, I could do so much better for them.
I want to give them heroes of kindness,
and compassion, and character, right?
We've lost character today.
Yeah.
And so I said to my daughter, I got a great hero.
Here's Amelia Earhart.
She flew across the Atlantic ocean.
And I said to my daughter, what do you think?
And she said,
"Big deal dad, everyone flies across the Atlantic ocean."
She was so not impressed.
I was like, wow, that was rough.
But I found this story and this is true.
When Amelia Earhart was seven years old,
she built a homemade rollercoaster in her backyard.
Amazing.
She took a wooden crate,
put some roller skating wheels in the bottom,
shoves it to the roof of her tool shed.
Two giant pieces of wood.
How brave is that?
And crazy, right?
All of it is amazing.
I love this.
So it's so brave, and daring, and bold.
And she comes racing flies through the air,
her stomach bottoms out from under her.
That's the first time Amelia Earhart ever flies.
She's seven years old.
It's amazing!
And I told my daughter that,
and she's like
You gave me chills!
And I'm 53.
But I told my daughter that and she was like,
"Tell me that one again."
And I realized, that's the secret sauce of the books.
Yeah.
Well, Chris Eliopoulos and I do, his beautiful art,
We always show them as kids.
And now these, aren't just stories of famous people,
this is what we're all capable of on our best days.
The stories of kids, like them.
Right. And so they see Abraham Lincoln,
Rosa Parks, Dr. King, Walt Disney, Neil Armstrong,
all these amazing people,
and we now have 25 books in the series.
It's so beautiful, it really is.
(audience applauds)
And, I love that you bring this up,
because it's so controversial right now,
and everybody talks about it in the news,
the influence of influencers and Instagram and
Facebook and all that on, on our young people.
And the idea of being famous just for being famous,
you know, just, you know,
seeking nothing but celebrity in life.
It's so great that there's tools out there for parents,
for the kids to have something
Listen, real to look for.
You know, look up to all throughout history.
And listen, we can complain about it
or do something about it.
And to me, I was like, you know,
I have my friend who was reading,
I am Rosa Parks with his daughter.
Now he's white, she's black.
They're a mixed race family.
The last page of every book,
despite the cute cartoons,
we always show the real person.
Yeah.
And his daughter's reading I am Rosa Parks
and gets to the last page and goes wait a minute,
this really happened?
This really happened.
He said, oh my God, I was having for the first time
a real conversation about race with my daughter.
And I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe
how many other conversations...
That you are a conduit.
And I love the fact, listen,
we all want our kids off their phones.
The only way you can get them off their devices,
you've got to show them something better.
And Chris Eliopoulos' art,
it's like this Calvin and Hobbes meets Charlie Brown.
It's really cool.
Like it's so cute.
And so kids just gravitate.
And they're page turners, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
They're real page turners.
(audience applauds)