[ Music ] >> Hi, I am Peter Reynolds, and I am here in
my studio where I do my thinking, my writing, my drawing, and it's in Dedham,
Massachusetts, which is not too far from Boston, Massachusetts where I have
been living most of my life. I was born in Canada but I made
my home here in Massachusetts. And I am really thrilled to be able to
connect the dots with all of you out there and share news about my latest
book, which is called, Be You! And this is what I like to call, the
handbook for amazing, amazing human beings. It explores this idea of being
a human being and I was thinking to myself, why are we called, beings? Right? We say humans, but we also say human
beings, and I thought to myself that that's because we can be, right,
we can be so many things. We can be, we can be amazing and that's what
I'm hoping this book inspires my young readers and also really, what, no matter what age
you are, I wrote this book for all ages. You can be in kindergarten, you could
be graduating high school, college, you could be starting a new career,
and all of us are works in progress, so this book celebrates our
possibility and I'm an optimist and I think things are going to get better. In school, how often do we ask
the most important question? The most important question
which is, who are you? Who are you? How often, think about it, in
your journey through school, how many times did you get asked
that question about who you are? Tell me who you are, where have you been,
where are you now, where are you going, and then the most important question
is where would you like to be going? Because that can be, that
can be really different, it could be just even a few degrees
different, and of course if you're a sailor, and I used to teach sailing at a summer camp,
to kids, I would tell kids that, you know, if you change course just by one degree, right,
if you wait long enough, you're going to be in a very, very different place
along the journey, so that's, that is my fascination and Be You! is my latest exploration and encouragement
for kids and grownup kids, adults, to really know who they are and also to
aspire to be the best version of themselves. Well I'm thrilled that without telling
people that this is a book for all ages, that I'm getting letters from people of all
ages, especially kids who are graduating, especially during these troubled times
that we're in, right, where this generation that is being thrown into this
wild void, you know, there's, none of us really know what's ahead and
how long this challenge is going to last. So we need to encourage kids even
more, to kind of dig deep you know, and find the best of themselves, right, to be
courageous, to be curious, also to be connected. And that's, I make a big point in this
book to find your kindred spirits, the people who really know you, you
don't need, you know, a thousand friends, 500 friends with the way that
Facebook seems to encourage us to think about friends, but truly your kindred spirits. And I may end up just being one
person, right, and that's okay. But find that one person or two and
create that little trusted circle so that you can be comfortable being yourself. Because it isn't easy, and that's
the other point I make in the book, that being truly authentic, being who you are,
it's a lot of work and sometimes it's scary and you know, sometimes it's
even dangerous to put yourself out and say, yeah, this is who I am. And that's why it's really important to be,
to find that safe circle, to be yourself and as you get braver and develop more tools
to be able to be brave, you know, 24/7, in all environments, you know, stick
with those people who love you. And also the other point that I like to
make is that be okay reaching out for help. Because I know there are a lot of people out
there who are, you know, they are struggling, this is taking a toll on us physically,
mentally, and we have to be okay with reaching out and asking for a helping hand. American ingenuity is this amazing gift, right,
that we, it's really a permission, right, a permission to be an original thinker which was what our founding fathers
were laying the groundwork for and I say laying the groundwork because we're
certainly not finished, we have a lot of work to do, but the idea is that one person is
not going to dictate the journey for you. And that the person who should
be carving that path is you, so that means you're going to
have to do your own thinking. And that is the core to ingenuity, right,
it is, it's doing your own thinking and also being an optimist and
looking at a challenge and saying, in this challenge there is an opportunity for
a solution and having those goggles, right, to see problems as actually a good thing, right,
these problems are an opportunity for us to kind of dig deep and show you know, what we've got
inside and how we can use our talent, our time, our energy, our resources,
to make things better. I'm a huge fan of libraries, and
by the way, happy 220th birthday to the Library of Congress, how cool is that? That's an old library. I used to hang out in an old library myself,
the Charles Adams Public Library in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, and I remember jumping
on my bicycle after school and heading down to number one, do my homework, and of
course we'd all be racing for the, you know, there'd be like four books on, you
know, the fill in the blank topic, and so you'd have to get to the
library first to get those books. But when I'd finish my homework, then
I was free to roam and I like to say that I was a free range chicken in the library
and I could wander anywhere in that library, and that was a very formational moment for
me that I realized that all of these books in all of these sections, were mine. And they were mine to explore and there was
no teacher saying read this book, right? It was me discovering those books and there
was something about a book cover, right, you'd look at a book and it would literally
speak to you, you could hear its voice say, read me, read me, this could
be important for you. And of course the only way to find out is
to open up that book and start reading. There was also on the second floor, there was
a book, I mean a room full of vinyl records and there were booths and
you could put headphones on and you could sit there and listen to music. And I thought to myself, I would like to listen
to every single one of these vinyl records. I don't think I made it through the entire
collection but I did listen to things that I would not have heard on
WRKO radio, their top 20 hits. I was listening to Louis Armstrong and Ella
Fitzgerald and Chopin and Beethoven, it was a, I was a kid in a candy shop
and I hope that people realize that libraries are this amazing resource to help
discover who you are and find out what sparks. So thanks to all the librarians
out there who are taking care of these incredibly important
knowledge centers and community centers. One of my favorite things to do is to think
and I love, you know, things begin sparking in my head and one of the saddest things I think
is to have a great idea and to lose it, right? So writing it down is a great way to do
it but I was given this gift of being able to take this image in here and use this hand
and something to write with to create an image and so I can actually record what I'm thinking. I can, I draw basically the
little films in my head and so I'm making these little films all
the time and I especially love to think of, like what little films could I create
that will make the world a better place? How can I create a story maybe model some kind
of discovery, this ah ha moment for a character and that maybe if I can, not just
tell it but to show it, that it will, it'll be really an efficient and a powerful
way to communicate that to my readers. And so that they can actually, they can see
that transformation in, I wrote a book called, The Dot, and the little girl in the book
is Vashti, and she says she can't draw, until of course, she meets a teacher who
thinks differently in more ways than one and she helps this little girl who said she
couldn't draw, bloom and be this amazing artist and not only be an amazing artist but inspire
others around her to be brave as well. So, I love that I can literally
draw that out of my head and then efficiently share it with the world. But of course picture books are a
pretty cool, pretty powerful tool for sharing big ideas very, very quickly. Because it takes about 5 or 6 minutes to
read one of my books and yet, it hopefully, delivers a very powerful message and a
message that you can connect to yourself because ultimately what I want
to do is to help my readers. I'm here, I've lived a long life, I'm
hopefully going to be around for a lot longer, but time is running out and I want to make
sure that everything that I have experience, my ah ha moments, that I can bottle them up and
gift them to you, to my readers, to you know, to my children, to my grandchildren, I'll be
able to reach out to them even after I'm gone, and say I learned something and maybe, just
maybe, it could help you on your journey and if it does, I will be
smiling somewhere beyond. A highlight here in this year and what
a topsy turvy year it was, with COVID-19 and then I lost a very, very dear friend
of mine, and I was feeling pretty blue and pretty low and then suddenly I got news
that President Barrack Obama and First Lady, Michelle Obama, were going to read
my book, this is the Greek version, but it's in many languages now, but this is The
Word Collector starring Jerome, who loves words, loves, loves, loves words and he collects words. And I was totally blown away that it would
be read by the president and first lady and it was part of the Chicago
Public Library Program, to share books during this troubled time
and they chose my book, The Word Collector, the share with the world and so it's been shared
many millions of times and which of course, you know, that picked me back up and
you know, I have, I'm in my studio, I'm working on several new books, I'm
very excited about, to share, but even I, Mr. Optimist, some days I need to be picked back
up and thanks to the Obama's, they did a lovely, lovely read of the book and but more importantly
that they were able to take that message in this book about, not memorizing words
but loving words and sharing those words with the world to make it a better place. So, thanks to them for, and
Chicago Public Library, for helping jettison out
the big idea of that book. And I hope that you get to read
Jerome's story too and share it with the people around you that you love. This book comes out this fall, and it's called,
Make Your Mark Gallery, a coloring book-ish. I wrote a book called Ish, about you know, not
worrying about getting everything just right, because a lot of us are perfectionists
and I have this concept of ish, it doesn't need to be a perfect tiger,
tiger-ish is pretty cool, right? In fact it might be more interesting. So, that's why I called it coloring book-ish,
and this is actually, it comes with 40 frames and perforated pages and of course the
others so the book is only half done and of course the rest is
going to be done by you. Which is kind of my philosophy is that the
blank page is a wonderful thing and some of us are less afraid of it and my goal
is to make everybody see that blank page as a swimming pool and see how refreshing
it is to dive in and to share, right? What you're thinking, feeling, and you know,
if you're a bit timid, you can always start at the shallow end of the pool and then you
work your way up to the deep end of the pool and then you can really do some
heavy duty sharing with the world, because the world needs you, the world
needs your voice so don't be shy, speak up and be a part of the change. Be a part of the evolution of human kind
to be kinder and take care of all of us. Well, this has been a wonderful session,
I'm glad that we were able to connect through technology, of course I wish we
were all together at this amazing festival, the National Book Festival, which, by the way, celebrates its 20th year this
year, so yay book festival! My twin brother and I were there a few years
back at the festival and if you have not been, it's just an amazing collection of people who
love, love, love, books but more importantly, they love the ideas that are inside books
because they are our vehicles, right, vehicles for ideas and ideas spark change
and we definitely need to change things. We need to make things better, we know we
can do better, we've seen the better part of humanity shine, and we need it to
shine brighter so, hopefully this session and other sessions are going to help you shine
brighter and add more light to this world. So, thank you again for letting
me share my stories with you and I hope my stories inspire you
to share your voice with the world. [ Music ]
