A look at Boys Town's Julia Cook.
It's very important that when you write a children's book, that it talks to a kid like a child is talking to another child. I see learning taking place in their eyes, I had a little kid come up to me this morning and said, "Julia Cook, your books have changed my life."
Because, they have skills in the books to make kids better, smarter, safer, all the -ers. Kids want to be good, they want to do the right thing, they just might not know how to do the right thing. The two things, how to listen and how to follow instructions are direct Boys Town skills wrapped up in a fun story and they kind of rhyme, the skills rhyme so kids can apply them to their lives and remember them.
As an educator, you don't solve your kids’ problems, you teach them how to solve their own problems, that's a good educator. As a counselor, you don't solve a child's problems, you teach them how to solve their own problems. What if they have a problem on Saturday, are they gonna call you up and ask you to help them?
If you write a really cool kid's book that gives problem-solving techniques that kids can own and use, they become the problem solver themselves, they become better. They relate to the stories because they're all about them.
With parents, we don't have a lot of time, but we can read to our children. If we can read a story to our children and teach them something, there you go, that's a two-for-one deal. A lot of parents out there, they're great parents, but they might not have had the skills growing up that they needed to become even better parents, and they can read about it in a children's book and think, "Wow, that's a great idea." Parents can learn how to be better parents by reading children's books to their kids, too.
