[ Music ] >> Shari Werb: Hi
everyone and welcome to the National Folk Festival. My name is Shari Werb from
the Library of Congress and I'm here today with Chelsea
Clinton whose featured book at the festival is "She
Persisted in Sports: American Olympians
Who Changed the Game." If you would like to see
Chelsea Clinton's presentation at the festival, please login
to National Book Festival.com. Let's begin the conversation
now. I see we have some
questions already. So, Chelsea, Marie A. asks, "Are you working on
another book now?" >> Chelsea Clinton: I am working
on a couple of book projects and can't talk about them
yet, but I'm really excited to share them when I
can, although I can talk about something else
I am really excited about that is book-related,
which is that next year in 2021, we are going to be releasing
chapter books featuring all of the 13 women who were in the first She Persisted
picture book, and I'm just so grateful to all of
the amazing women authors who have lent their talents
to help bring Helen Keller, and Oprah Winfrey, and Griffith
Joyner, and Nellie Bly and all of the women that I write about
in the first She Persisted into the world in
chapter book form. >> Shari Werb: Great. Those of you who watching,
please feel free to put comments or questions in the Chat. I'm curious to know who
or what inspired you to become a professional writer? >> Chelsea Clinton: I've
always loved to write and I'm so thankful to the teachers that
I had as a kid who expected me to write, and I think through
that expectation that kind of everyone can be a
writer, that every child at least should try
to be a writer. I really did discover this-- this love or writing and I really became a
children's book author, I had written academic works and
I've written for kind of older-- older readers in
the kids categories, the preteens, teenagers. I really though became
a children's book writer when I became a mom and
started reading a lot of children's books, and I
couldn't find some of the types of books that I really
wanted to read with my kids, both my daughter and at the
time I only I had one son, so kind of that compelled me
into this space and I'm just so thankful that my children
brought children's literature into my life and that is now
such a big part of what I do. >> Shari Werb: Well, we're thankful too
that you're writing. Sam Ettington has
a question for you, "Have you considered
writing fiction?" >> Chelsea Clinton: Yes. For about 2 years maybe now, every once in a while I pick-up
this fiction idea that I've had and I have an outline, and
I've kind of fleshed out some of the main characters
and I've even talked to my editor about the idea. And I'm sure that many people
can empathize with this, this was sort of the things
I thought I might get done in quarantine, but I've spent
all of my time like being a mom and working from home being in
quarantined for all the things that I'm already
committed to do. So, it's still there
like in the back in my head kind of
rattling around. So I hope-- I hope that I will
find the time to kind of try to wrestle that into
existence, so stay tuned. I don't know when, but
hopefully at some point. >> Shari Werb: Okay. Well, Emily Kaluchi
[assumed spelling] asks, what was your favorite book for
you growing up and what is one or two titles, in
particular, which you and your children love
to read together?" >> Chelsea Clinton: Oh, my
gosh such a fun question. So, I'll start with kind of
the books that I loved growing up that my kids are reading
right now that they love. I love this book
"Once upon a Rainbow." She's a little girl who kind of
adventures through every color of the rainbow and just thought
it was the most kind of magical and wonderful read as a child
and my parents saved that book and kind of gave it to my
kids, so their grandkids and my children find it as--
as captivating as I did. Similarly, the other book that
I love is the book called the "Wizard's Daughter" that they-- that my parents also gave
my kids that they love. I just love the Georgia
Martha stories which my kids are loving. I loved Amelia Bedelia
with my [inaudible] loving. And then, you know, they've
brought all sorts of books into my life that I
didn't have as kid. We are huge Mo Willems'
fans in our family. We love Elephant and Piggie
and we love the Pigeon. We also love his book
about Edwina, the Dinosaur who didn't believe
she was extinct. We love the Keith Negley book,
"Mary Wears What She Wants" about the amazing
Mary Edwards Walker who helped normalize the
wearing of pants for women in our country, and also was a
battlefield surgeon during the Civil War and is the only woman to ever receive the
Congressional Medal of Honor in our country's history, which
is a I think shocking anecdote; extraordinary for
her, but shocking that there haven't
been other women who have deemed worthy
of the honor. And so yes, it's so fun to
discover books with my kids. My son admittedly at the moment
is really into superheroes, so we read a lot of like the
Marvel 5-Minute superhero stories with acting out
these, I don't know, whichever character we're
reading right at the moment, Iron Man or Black Panther
whichever has caught is imagination like that evening. We read a lot surprisingly in
my family, and thankfully they like to read my books too. Probably not one of their
favorites, but they're up there. >> Shari Werb: Well, maybe you and your kids will watch
Mo Willems who's going to be live answering questions
at 10 O'clock on Sunday morning, and that will be a fun
conversation as well. We have a question from Hannah
Sultice [assumed spelling] who happens to be a librarian
at the Library of Congress and she is curious to
know if you could talk about your research process
for the topics often written for adults as you instill
those into children's books. >> Chelsea Clinton: Oh, my gosh
that is such a great question. I don't-- I don't know that
I've ever really been asked that question, so I'm
thrilled to be able to talk about this here. So, I do a lot of research. I mean, I know there are
like three or four sentences on these pages, but I do
a lot of research to get to those three or
four sentences. So, I read biographies if
there are like institutions or organizations that
steward these women's kind of legacies or work. I reach out to them, I,
excuse me, their materials. And I probably write about
two pages for each woman first and then that kind
of gets windowed, still narrowed whatever
the right verbs are down to like one page and then that
gets down to like one paragraph, and it's actually the hardest
to then take that kind of, you know, that one or two
paragraphs to get that down to three or four sentences. So, and I obviously have
autobiographies [inaudible] too. Thank you for asking that. >> Shari Werb: [Foreign
Name Spoken] I'm sorry if I pronounced your
name incorrectly. "Are you considering to write about children's
environmental health?" >> Chelsea Clinton: So,
I've written about kind of children's environmental
health if you mean that you mean the environment
at home or in the communities where they are living or kind
of our global environment and climate change in a couple
of different ways, but recently in a book called "Start Now"
which I wrote for kind of, you know, elementary aged
kids say like six to nine, six to ten-year-olds
about some of the issues that I have heard kind of from
kids from my nieces and nephews, from their friends, from
kids that I interacted with on other book tours and
other forums that are kind of really on their minds. So, I write about
bullying; sadly I have heard about bullying all
over the country, and I write about
the environment, and I write about endangered
species, and with health and nutrition and kind
of just tackle questions that I've heard kind of from
kids themselves, and also, highlight some of the kids
specifically in that age group, kind of you know seven, eight, nine trying to save their local
frogs or stop the idling of cars and their schools
kind raise awareness about solar energy more, so
yes I have written about that and hope I'll have a chance
to write more about it. >> Shari Werb: Thank
you for doing that. We have a number of questions
from Wendy Weldon, but I'm going to ask would you consider
collaborating on a book with another author
or your parents? >> Chelsea Clinton: So, I've
written a couple of books now with my mom and absolutely would
consider you know collaborating with either of my
parents or other authors. I'd very much consider
the She Persisted books to be collaborations
with the illustrator, with the extraordinary
Alexandra Boiger who I could not imagine
these books without her incredible talents
and just have so loved working with her now over the
last, goodness three year, three-and-a-half years,
and I knew of her work because we love the
Tallulah's ballerina series which Alexandra illustrates. I just thought I had the right
mix of kind of being earnest and whimsical, of being
kind of serious and yet also but approachable and accessible
and that's really why I wanted to and hoped for with
the She Persisted series. So, yes always open to-- to collaborations and very much
have lived experiences of how-- how important it is to find--
to find the right collaborator for whatever we may
be writing or kind of thinking about writing. >> Shari Werb: Great. Well, we have a question from a
third grade teacher I believe, Doreen Michael "What was your
favorite chapter book growing up my third graders
are curious to know?" >> Chelsea Clinton: "A Wrinkle
in Time" like unquestionably. I loved "A Wrinkle
in Time" and think about Meg all the
time still today, like I don't know,
how many years later. So, yeah that was
my favorite book. I mean, I loved-- I've always
loved, I've always loved to read lots of chapter books,
but if I just had to pick one that was absolutely the
one that have to pick. >> Shari Werb: So,
third graders try that one, "A Wrinkle in Time." We have a question from Leann
Gellski [assumed spelling]. "What book is your
nightstand right now?" >> Chelsea Clinton: Hum. There a lot of books on
my nightstand right now. I mean, the honest answer my
kids' books on my nightstand because my son Aidan had a
nightmare last night and crawled into bed very early this
morning or late at night and brought a whole stack of
books for them, so but probably like the most honest
real-time answer is like those are what you would
see first on my bookstand. I have Glennon Doyle's most
recent book on my bookstand which I have not started yet. I have Louise Penny's most
recent book on my bookstand which I also have
not started yet. I have found myself
mainly reading, as kind of my other great
passions in life and commitment to life to global health, I
spend most of my time reading about COVID these days and
reading articles in the Lancet or the British Medical
Journal or you know reporting from around the world. So, my fiction reading has
gotten kind of scrunched and my non-fiction reading
has also gotten scrunched if it doesn't relate
to COVID handily. And I've reread some of like
the great global health books that I've read before, but
I reread Laurie Garrett's "The Coming Plague" and I
reread a couple of her books about the 1918 flu pandemic, so even like the books
I'm reading are kind of related to that. >> Shari Werb: Vivian
Whipple has a nice question, "Would you ever write a
book with your daughter?" >> Chelsea Clinton: Yes. If she wanted to write a book
I would be honored and thrilled to write a book with
her or with my sons. I mean, Jasper just turned
one, so he's probably not-- I mean, he's just trying to
like learn words right now. He's very chatty, but we don't
quite know what he's saying yet. I would love to write a
book with my children. My daughter has created
lots of stories. She is obsessed with sharks. She loves sharks. She doesn't understand why so
many people are scared of sharks when most sharks are
harmless and sharks are, she will tell you, so
important to the kind of health and balance of the oceans and
so she's constantly making up stories where sharks like are
the, you know, are the good guys in the story and the heroes in
the story, and like rescuing, I don't know, the
goldfish or whatever needs to be rescued in her stories. She's already very creative
and I am super excited to kind of learn from her and with her
and would love to collaborate with her if that's
what she wanted to do. >> Shari Werb: We will
stay tuned on that one. Emily Hansen wonders "How do you
make sure to represent people of all races and backgrounds? Is this important
to you and why" >> Chelsea Clinton: It's
hugely important to me. I think that their
representation matters, certainly representation
is not sufficient to obliterate you know
centuries of structural and systemic racism in our
country, and yet you know, we're not going to be able to do that if we don't have
representation, you know, if we don't kind of enable kids
to see themselves in books. I think, you know, so often it
is through books where children for the first time, you
know, outside of their from their families, you
know, are told effectively like what is-- what is
possible or not for them? What is expected or not, you
know, what will they be kind of believed in for
their kind of potential and their aspirations,
their dreams or not. So, representation is hugely
important to me, and really kind of always open to continue
like feedback and criticism and suggestions for what
more I could be doing and how I can help, you
know, channel attention that might be paid to me or
my books kind of onto kind of more diverse people kind
of who are, in this case, yes persisting, but
also very much like proving what is possible
because I think about something that both two women that I
really admire, Sally Ride and Marian Wright Edelman
who was the founder of the Children's Defense Fund
both said in different ways that it's hard to imagine
what you can't see. So, I think we need to help kids
see themselves in as many ways as possible so that they
can imagine themselves to be everything. >> Shari Werb: That's a great
transition to this next question from Andrea Sensari
[assumed spelling]. "Would you ever consider
writing a book on what it was like to grow up in the
White House as a child?" >> Chelsea Clinton: Maybe. I mean, I would consider it. That's something I've really
thought about doing, yeah, but maybe at some point. >> Shari Werb: Um. Crystal Byrd asks, "With few
funds to afford new books, I use my public library
extensively. How do you partner
with libraries and reading initiatives
to make sure that children have
access to all books?" >> Chelsea Clinton: So, I think
that's such a crucial question and I'm so thankful to
Penguin and Philomel, my imprint at Penguin for
their commitment to this and we partnered together and
helped donate tens of thousands, I mean, now actually
hundreds of thousands of books including most
recently more than 25,000 books to Littlerock which is a
place close to my heart, this is where I was born, it's where I spent the first
twelve years of my life, to help distribute to
families during COVID at food distribution sites. We've done a lot of work with the National Diaper Bank
Network including like here in New York HopeLine which is a
major diaper bank in the Bronx, but also worked with
the national network across the country and
I think distributed more than 200,000 books now kind
of through the partnership of Philomel and then
kind of through our work with something called Too Small
to Fail have distributed more than a million books across
the country through working with food banks and
food pantries, but also pediatrician's offices so that pediatricians can
actually like prescribe books and then have books to give
to families and we've done that work largely
with Scholastic, but also with other partners. So, fundamentally I believe
it's important and try to do what I can for kind
as an author and advocate to help more kids
get more books. >> Shari Werb: Thank
you for doing that. What? I have another
question here from Ryan Moralis
[assumed spelling], "What's it like to have
Hillary Clinton as a mother?" >> Chelsea Clinton: Well,
I don't know what it's like to not have her as a mom. I mean, I don't mean
to be flippant, I just like she's my mom,
like she's always been my mom. She's great as a mom. And I've always known that that
was the most important part of your life is to be my mom, so I've always been incredibly
proud of you know her and all that she's done,
and yet also first and foremost that she's my mom. >> Shari Werb: Okay,
here's a question from Katie Klankal [assumed
spelling], "Speaking of", well just thinking about COVID
and you have young children, "How are you and your
family navigating the remote school situation? Are they remote learning, and
if they are do they enjoy it?" >> Chelsea Clinton: Well,
I will say at the beginning in March we, Charlotte
adapted like pretty quickly and has really been able to, I
think, clearly like she misses like pre-COVID, but I think
she's really been able to have meaningful interactions
through the screening with her teachers and
also with her friends. I mean, she has Zoom play
dates and FaceTime play dates, and they you know like
pick a craft to work on together whether
they're like making or they're drawing something,
or she would have one play date where we like we're baking,
I think we were making like granola bars, like her
friends were making everybody was making granola
bars like one Saturday. It's been harder I think for
Aiden who's younger to feel that same level of connection. They're both in kind of hybrid
models now which I'm grateful for and, you know,
they're really aware of like my son Jasper who's a
year old, he's now spent half, more than of his life like in
quarantine or shelter in place with staying at home,
staying separate and safe, and obviously he can't build like baby friendships
on a screen. So, he's not having like virtual
play dates and I'm so thankful that his big brother, his big
sister like love him so much and spend a lot of time
with him and play with him, and read with him, and talk
to him, and engage with him, but I am aware that he
like has no friends to, I mean he's now walking, to
like walk and run around with or to learn how to navigate
like who gets to chew on the board book or
the [inaudible] tile. So, I don't know what more to
do than to just kind of continue to like ensure that he's
loved and to just tell him like at some point you're
going to have baby friends, like you will have them at
some point when it's safe. >> Shari Werb: I'm sure so
many people watching feel very similar relating to
you really tough times. I love this question
from Gail Hamm, "Your mother said she gave
you her Nancy Drew books, how were you influenced
by Nancy Drew's character? Will you read them to your
daughter and perhaps your sons?" >> Chelsea Clinton: Oh, my gosh
I absolutely will read them to my daughter and to my sons. And I love Nancy Drew. I mean, I think I knew like
even when I was reading them as a kid, first with my
mom and then on my own, like that it was totally
improbable this 16-year-old girl would be like off on her
own like gallivanting around solving mysteries, like
not really in school or working, kind of her father
checked in like sometimes. I mean, I know that-- I know that even at that the
time it felt kind of unreal, and yet, even though I knew
all of that, just her kind of doggedness, her
belief that she could like tackle any problem and solve any mystery was
incredibly inspiring to me, and I'm also thankful that my, because of when my mom the read
stories, she like had the books that my grandmother saved and
then like she gave to my mom and like I will give to
my children at some point, is they are from the era before
like Nancy Drew got this kind of feminine edit
like in the early 60s where you know she started
wearing skirts instead of pants or trousers, and
like the language around her became
a little softer with adjectives were shifted
to be a little more feminine or what was perceived to
be feminine at the time. So, I'm thankful that we have like the original versions
before that happened, although now since your you
know there's been an effort to like kind of undo those
edits and return to texts to what was originally
written and intended. >> Shari Werb: So, Laura
Sylvius [assumed spelling] has a follow-up question there on
Nancy Drew, "How do you deal with some of Nancy Drew's
problematic racial language and attitudes?" Or would you if you
[audio issues] have? >> Chelsea Clinton: Well,
you have to deal with it. I mean, I think that when I
read the books with my kids like we will talk about that
you have to talk about that and you have to, you
know, I don't think if something was acceptable
like 60-70 years ago, somehow makes it like less
terrible or more okay. I've never bought
into that framework where they were talking about
Thomas Jefferson or Nancy Drew. So, I think-- I think you
just, you deal with it and you talk about it. >> Shari Werb: Thank you. I'm going to be asking
you the last question, so Rachel Jamison
asks, What do you do-- "What do you enjoy doing
when you are able to squeeze out a few minutes of free time?" >> Chelsea Clinton: Run. If I get like 20 minutes, 25 minutes probably I'll
go for a 20 minute run. >> Shari Werb: Well,
I hope you have time for that today and we really. >> Chelsea Clinton: I won't
have time for that today, but tomorrow, tomorrow. >> Shari Werb: Excellent. We really appreciate you
taking the time to spend more, spend some time with us today and we hope you have a
really, really good day. Thank you. >> Chelsea Clinton:
Thank you so much. Stay safe everyone. [ Music ]
