October 7, 2025 • 29 mins
Stories aren’t just how we pass time—they’re how we pass on what it means to be human. We sit down with librarian and children’s literature expert Betsy Bird to unpack why reading aloud is more than a bedtime ritual. It’s brain food during the fastest phase of neural growth; a daily practice that builds language, attention, and the social skill that holds every relationship together: empathy.
We dive into research showing how literary fiction boosts theory of mind, helping kids understand that other people think and feel differently than they do. That skill matters in a polarized world where algorithms reward outrage and flatten nuance. Books slow us down long enough to inhabit another mind—what author John Green calls “shrinking the empathy gap.” We also confront the rise of organized book bans: why diverse stories and queer themes draw fire, how librarians already vet collections for age and quality, and what censorship really fears—children learning to perspective-take beyond the boundaries someone else drew for them.
Betsy shares three unforgettable picture books parents can use tonight. The Rabbit Listened models presence over fixing; Sorry You Got Mad turns a bad apology into a real one; Touch the Sky reframes perseverance as a long, honest process.
Along the way, we honor Banned Books Week as a reminder to protect access to complex stories.
If this conversation sparked an idea or gave you something to try with your kids, subscribe, leave a quick review, and share this episode with one parent who’d love it. Your recommendation helps other families find the show—and keeps the circle of stories alive.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
For thousands of years, humans have primarily
(00:02):
communicated meaning throughstories.
Our earliest account begins4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia,
where people are already tellingthe story of Gilgamesh, a king
who could conquer anything butdeath.
(00:22):
A story not about power, butabout the limits of power.
Around the same time in Egypt, asailor tells his panicked
commander about a shipwreck, astorm, and a giant serpent who
offers him comfort instead offear.
That's the shipwrecked sailor.
A story about how our fate isnot totally up to us.
(00:43):
In India, the stories were sung.
Hymns of the Rigvada carried forcenturies, word for word by
memory alone.
In Greece, blind poets likeHomer told of Odysseus, ten
years at sea, storms, gods,monsters, but really just
longing for home.
A story that spawned most ofwhat we see now in movie
(01:04):
theaters.
A hero's journey about howmeaning is found not in
conquest, but in return.
Then there's the Hebrewcarpenter from the backwater
town of Nazareth, who grew uplistening to stories and made up
his own stories about goodSamaritans, prodigal sons, and a
bunch of farmers.
And then he was gone.
And other people told storiesabout him, stories that would
(01:27):
shape our world for the next2,000 years.
Today we have our own sharedstories, our own myths.
Stories about real people likeGeorge Washington and Alexander
Hamilton, stories aboutfictional ones, Huck Finn,
Sherlock Holmes.
We also have our own personalstories.
The day we lost our innocence,the first time we knew grief,
(01:51):
the story of how we fell inlove, the day that we became a
parent.
Modern neuroscientists haveshown us what we've known for
millennia (01:59):
that humans make meaning from stories.
They are our tools to teach, toremember, connect, to make
meaning.
They're often called humanity'sgreatest invention.
So great, in fact, that we hadto invent other ways of telling
those stories.
From oral history to writing,from copied texts to printing
(02:21):
presses, and eventually massmarket publishing industry.
How we consume our stories willkeep changing, but they remain
our most valuable treasure, notonly for our well-being, but the
future of our world.
The stories we tell matter morethan almost anything else, and
if we're smart, they can becomeour greatest asset as parents.
(02:41):
Today on the Whole ParentPodcast, we're asking how
important are books in the lifeof a child?
We're going to dig into what theresearch says, we're going to
hear from one of the leadingvoices in children's literature,
and we're going to explore whyreading aloud might just be one
of the most revolutionary actsin parenting.
Let's dig into it.
(03:08):
Betsy Byrd is the kind of personwho knows more about children's
books than most people knowabout their own families.
She's a longtime librarian,former head of all children's
literature for the New YorkPublic Library System, and now
leading the collection atEvanston Public Library, the
place where I learned how toread.
She's reviewed children's books,written about children's books,
(03:29):
written children's booksherself.
You get it.
She loves children's books.
SPEAKER_01 (03:34):
I'm always fascinated, but particularly
when I encounter parents whodon't read to their babies,
don't read to their toddlersbecause they're like, well,
they're not gonna understand itat this point.
And I'm like, what do you thinkreading is?
It's making those connections,it's taking those synapses and
connecting them in the brain.
So from a very, very early age,if you can associate books with
(03:58):
cuddling with, you know, aparent or guardian, it can be
incredible.
SPEAKER_00 (04:04):
I want to pause here for a moment.
I used to think that bedtimestories were just, well, bedtime
stories.
Part of a bedtime routine.
Maybe a way to wind down, butultimately a tool to get kids to
sleep and avoid the dreaded, onemore cup of water, please.
But Betsy sees booksdifferently.
She sees them as tools and,well, brain food.
SPEAKER_01 (04:28):
Everyone's like talking about, like, oh, I want
my kid to be the smartest, Iwant my kid to be the best at
this, that, and the other.
But starting like right at zerobecause they move so fast.
Their brains are making theseconnections so incredibly
quickly.
If you can have any influence onthat, it's a good thing.
And books, my lord, books arethe cheapest, the most natural
(04:50):
way to do it.
SPEAKER_00 (04:51):
Okay, let's pause again and ask here
research to back this up?
Actually, yes.
A lot of it.
Studies from developmentalpsychology show that narrative
fiction, especially books withrich emotional content, can
significantly boost a child'stheory of mind.
For those not familiar with theterm, theory of mind is a
person's ability to understandthoughts, emotions, and
(05:13):
perspectives of someone else.
Basically, that not everyonethinks and experiences the world
as they do.
Kids don't come with theory ofmind built in.
It's something that they have todevelop over time.
Some kids have a harder timewith it than others, and books
can really help.
According to a 2013 study fromKidd and Costano, reading
(05:33):
literary fiction increasesempathy scores because of its
impact on the developing theoryof mind.
Here's how Betsy puts it.
SPEAKER_01 (05:41):
You're a small blob who has been dropped into a
crazy place, and now you havesomething that actually is going
to help you comprehend what allthis is.
Um, so it's a tool, it's a toolfor kids.
It's such an opportunity.
It's like, oh my god, like, youknow, you have a chance to make
(06:03):
a kid, you know, on likecomprehend the world.
SPEAKER_00 (06:07):
I want to stay on this point for a moment because
I think it's huge.
In my personal and professionalexperience, the single most
important tool for healthyrelationships is empathy.
People who are not empatheticparents, coworkers, friends, and
partners fail to fostermeaningful long-term
relationships that can last.
Let me say it clearly.
(06:27):
One of the most importantrelational skills that you can
teach to your child is to leadwith empathy.
And books are empathy machines.
Here's what John Green, aworld-renowned, best-selling
fiction and now nonfictionauthor says about books.
My case for books is that theyshrink the empathy gap.
(06:50):
Because when I read Catcher inthe Rye, Holden Caulfield isn't
my friend, my spouse, or myanything.
He's as close to I can come tobeing someone else.
And through the process ofimagining with clarity and
sophistication what it's like tobe someone else, we both learn
what it is to be ourselves, butall we also learn what it is to
(07:11):
be one of the other 8 billionpeople on this planet.
I don't think it's a hot take tosay that we live in a pretty
divided and conflicted world.
Over the summer, we saw aDemocratic lawmaker in Minnesota
(07:32):
assassinated in her own home.
Three weeks ago, Charlie Kirk,an extremely controversial and
popular voice in the far right,was killed on a college campus.
These murders, in many ways, arethe next escalation in a
political climate fraught withincreasing polarization.
I don't think it's really hardto see how we got here.
(07:54):
For the last decade, socialmedia algorithms have been
increasingly adept at keeping usin our own personalized echo
chambers, stoking our fears andour hatred to keep us online,
generating ad revenue for them.
Politicians, mediapersonalities, and yes, even our
social media creators, peoplelike me, have learned that the
best way to drive engagement andviews is by pushing people into
(08:15):
their camps, creating anever-flowing source of
controversy for the algorithmsto feed us.
All of this leads to oneunmistakable outcome the erasure
of our empathy.
We are no longer interested inunderstanding Holden Caulfield
like John Green.
We're now here to judge him andvenerate him or cancel him,
(08:36):
depending on whether he is onour side or not.
Go online and search this.
Look at your TikTok feed.
You'll hear takes like Holden isa misogynist or Holden is
misunderstood.
Or perhaps Holden is just aprophetic example of the male
loneliness epidemic.
Maybe Holden is a feministsatire.
Holden is a hero, Holden is avillain, Holden is brilliant,
(08:57):
Holden is just annoying, whiny,entitled.
Or maybe the truth is all of theabove.
The question is, what will ourkids think of Holden Caulfield?
Or maybe better said, will ourkids even know who he is?
SPEAKER_01 (09:17):
That's the thing, is that this isn't new.
We have waves of book banning atcertain times, and we always
have.
The difference now being it'sbetter organized.
You've got the internet.
Now you've got the internet.
Now people can get mad together.
Collective madness in everysense.
SPEAKER_00 (09:34):
For years, Catcher in the Rye, the book with Holden
as the protagonist, has beenuniversally accepted as one of
the great works of Americanfiction.
It's also been one of the mostbanned books in history.
Course language is often citedas a reason as well as sexual
content.
Notably here, though, by sexualcontent, what's depicted is
(09:54):
discussions about sex, notactually sex itself.
But then there are otherreasons.
Holden is a rebel strugglingwith depression and alienation
who questions authority andtraditional hierarchy.
Holden, in other words, is not ahero that advocates of that
traditional hierarchy wantyoung, impressionable children
to emulate.
SPEAKER_01 (10:15):
So the idea is that you are protecting children,
that there is something in thisliterature that is dangerous.
Whether it's giving kids ideasthey wouldn't have otherwise,
exposing them.
You know, the they don't want totalk about racial racial
diversity.
(10:35):
They'll say things are woke, butthey don't like the increase
necessarily in all these BIPOCcreators and characters in these
books.
So that's not great for them.
SPEAKER_00 (10:46):
Maybe, as some critics have pointed out,
Holden's curious and ambiguousreactions to the people he
meets, his constant admonitionthat everyone everywhere is fake
or, in his words, phony, hisveneration of these celibate
nuns that he meets, andespecially his own strained
relationship with his ownsexuality points to a different
conclusion.
(11:08):
Maybe the real reason we don'twant kids reading about Holden
is that he might be gay.
SPEAKER_01 (11:15):
So then on top of that, you have the LGBTQ stuff,
you know, and so that they feellike, oh, okay, that's a threat.
To know that this stuff exists,I guess, I'm a little unclear on
that one.
I think they think these bookswill turn their children gay,
which apparently is a terriblething.
But they they certainly justdon't want to wait, they just
(11:35):
don't want to deal with it.
And that's fine for your ownkids.
You don't want your kid to reada book.
That's your right.
You're a parent.
You don't you can keep your kidunless your kid's older and
finding books on their own.
Oh, that's where it comes into.
But you know, if you want yourkid to read that picture book,
you have the right to say don't.
Where you don't have the rightis to say that that person over
there, they should not bereading that book to their kid.
(11:57):
And that's where it all breaksdown.
But it's interesting in ahorrible way as well, because it
really does speak to the ideathat ideas are the dangerous
thing here.
That if you expose a kid toideas, I could not we're not
even going to get into likegraphic novels and stuff like
that, where there's visuals ontop of it, but these are just
words.
Um, and then you know, picturebooks with some pictures, but
they're always appropriate ifthey're in picture books.
(12:19):
And let us not forget, everysingle one of these books has
been vetted to even get into thelibrary.
There's a lot of schlack outthere that libraries are not
buying on a regular basis.
But we have trainedprofessionals, professionals who
have gone to school specificallyfor this purpose of deciding
what to and what not to buy forone community or another, but
(12:39):
apparently that is not goodenough.
And we must keep everyone'schildren from seeing these
things.
And that's where it gets realsquidgy.
The fact that in the age of theinternet, this is the threat.
I'm like, wow, okay.
Yeah.
Have you been online?
SPEAKER_00 (12:55):
This is an interview that I've been sitting with for
a while.
I conducted it over a year ago.
And it's this last quote fromBetsy that really has had me
thinking for basically thatwhole time.
In the age of the internet, thisis the threat.
And what I've finally come to isthat, yes, for the group of
(13:17):
people who wants to ban Catcherin the Rye, or John Green's
book, Looking for Alaska, or thenow infamous Not All Boys Are
Blue, I think these books arethe threat.
The threat that their childrenmight learn to perspective take
and empathize with groups thatthey want to erase.
Empathy is radicalizing.
(13:38):
Once you've empathized with anundocumented immigrant, it gets
harder to justify masked menabducting them off the street.
Once you've empathized with ablack protagonist, it becomes
harder to claim that racism isno longer an issue.
Once you've empathized with agay or lesbian or trans or
bisexual protagonist, it becomesharder to argue that they ought
(14:01):
not to exist.
Empathy, proximity, perspective,these are all incredibly
dangerous for those who want tohate.
It's why Hitler, a man bent onmaking people hate, had to first
burn the stories of Jews beforeturning to their bodies.
Stories are, as John says, thereto shrink our empathy gap.
(14:24):
And maybe that's the whole game.
(14:46):
And here's what she said.
SPEAKER_01 (14:48):
Immediately I thought of three books, two of
them from this year, one fromabout two or three years ago.
The one that if you haven'tencountered it already, it is
maybe one of the best books onboy.
It's just emotionally, it's justit's it disgusts you.
It's called The Rabbit Listenedby Corey Dorfeld.
And it is about how to deal withsomeone going through something
(15:11):
hard.
A kid is just building withbrick like blocks, someone
knocks him over.
Now the kid is like upset.
And all these different animalsare coming in to tell the kid
how to deal with this emotion.
Like you should get mad, likeyou should cry, like you should
like laugh it off, forget aboutit, you know.
And they're all and then therabbit finally comes in, and all
(15:31):
the rabbits tearing up,literally saying this.
The rabbit just listens.
And then the kid is able to gothrough all those different
things by talking to the rabbitwho's just there to listen.
It's so good.
It's so well done.
For me, it's kind of set thestandard for books like this
where it's like the message isso simple, but so hard for even
(15:53):
adults to get.
And it's just like, because itcould be any form of grief.
It doesn't have to be yourblocks being knocked down, but
that's such a kid-centric, likeunderstanding.
In a similar way, there'sanother kind of blocks being
knocked down book that's outthis year called I'm sorry you
got mad by Kyle Lukov.
And it is a series of apologies.
So a kid has done something andhas to write, according to their
(16:15):
teacher, a note to another kidin the class apologizing.
And the notes are like terrible,like at the start, like, you
know, sorry you got mad.
And then the teacher's like, tryagain.
And it's entirely epistolary.
It's entirely done through theseletters, and you slowly begin to
realize why this incidentoccurred.
The apologies start to getbetter and better until finally
(16:37):
you have a legitimately goodapology.
Again, this is a book that Ifeel like adults should be
reading like a lot of the timebecause it's just a really good
how-to-do an apology book, butit's also just very funny.
Um, Julie Kwan did the art forit and ended her kids.
It's just, she's never donehumor before.
She's done a lot of veryemotional, meaningful picture
(16:57):
books.
Nothing against those.
But this one is both emotional,meaningful, and very funny at
the same time, which is kind ofmy sweet spot.
It's kind of what I love.
And then there's another onethis year, and this was more on
the fun side, but again, it'sjust really good.
Um, called Touch the Sky byStephanie Lucianovic.
And it's about just learning topump your legs on a swing and
how hard that is.
(17:18):
And it's about how kids have toconstantly learn things that are
hard, like riding a bike orlearning how to pump.
And it's not the instant.
There was a I always say it'sthe Elmo situation where there's
an Elmo sequence on SesameStreet where Elmo hat wants to
learn the trumpet, tries thefirst time, doesn't get it,
tries the second time, doesn'tget it, tries the third time.
They're amazing at it.
And it's like, no, that's nothow learning things works.
(17:40):
It's like you've got to showkids.
And the pumping the legs intouch the sky is brilliant.
At the same time, very beautifulbook.
Chris Clark did the art and it'sjust rainbow amazing colors.
And then just funny.
It's very funny.
Like the kid like lying in thosewood chips under the swing,
being like, Maybe I'll live herenow.
Maybe this is easier thantrying.
(18:00):
And uh it's just a really goodshowing how long it takes to
learn something, though.
SPEAKER_00 (18:08):
I've struggled to know when I wanted to release
this episode.
I've had the interview for areally long time and tried to
figure out exactly what I wantedto say.
But I felt like it was importantto release it this week, the
beginning of season three.
Because as I've been seeing atall of the local libraries that
we go to, and by the way, notincluded in our conversation,
(18:30):
was a long section where Betsygoes into depth about how
libraries are not just aboutbooks.
They're about story time andscavenger hunts and ways to take
your kid somewhere that doesn'tcost a bunch of money in the
middle of winter in Chicago whenyou just need a place to go with
your toddler.
As we have been going to all oflibraries, which is one of our
(18:51):
favorite things to do, we'venoticed posters up everywhere
that this week, beginningOctober 5th, is Banned Books
Week.
It's a week about awareness thatsome stories are under a greater
threat than they have been,maybe in our lifetimes.
It's massively important that wekeep those stories.
Not because I agree with all ofthem.
(19:13):
Betsy also talked about inanother place in our interview
how sometimes the banning comesfrom the other side.
People wanting to ban books thathave implicitly racist or
misogynistic content baked in.
Children's books like Tiki TikiDembo, or one of the most famous
examples from Dr.
Seuss.
It's important to keep all ofthese stories because they tell
(19:37):
the true story of what it is tobe human.
They shrink our empathy gap.
They are tools, perhaps thegreatest tool that we have for
teaching our children emotionalintelligence, perspective
taking, and love for the amazingworld that is around them.
(19:58):
To end this episode, I wanted toread to you one of the books
that Betsy pointed out.
My favorite of the three,although all three are really
good, and you can get them andyou should get them.
But the one that is my favoriteis The Rabbit Listened.
It's the one that she talked themost about.
And I wanted to read it to youat the end of our episode to
(20:20):
remind you that in spite of allof the hard things that we've
talked about, our most importantjob as parents, the best thing
that we can do for our kids isto be people who listen.
(20:47):
One day, Taylor decided to buildsomething.
Something new.
Something special.
Something amazing.
Taylor was so proud.
But then out of nowhere, thingscame crashing down.
(21:09):
The chicken was the first tonotice.
Clack clock.
What a shame.
I am so sorry, sorry, thishappened.
Let's talk to talk to talk totalk about it.
Clack clock but Taylor didn'tfeel like talking.
So the chicken left.
Next came the bear.
(21:32):
How horrible.
I bet you feel so angry.
Let's shout about it.
But Taylor didn't feel likeshouting.
So the bear left.
The elephant knew just what todo.
(21:53):
I can fix this.
We just need to remember exactlyhow things were.
But Taylor didn't feel likeremembering.
So the elephant also left.
One by one they came.
The hyena.
Let's laugh about it.
(22:14):
The ostrich.
What's hard and pretend nothinghappened.
The kangaroo.
Let's throw it all the way.
And the snake.
Someone else.
(22:37):
But Taylor didn't feel likedoing anything with anybody.
So eventually, they all left.
Until Taylor was alone.
In the quiet, Taylor didn't evennotice the rabbit.
But it moved closer and closer.
(23:00):
Until Taylor could feel its warmbody.
Together they sat in silence.
Until Taylor said, please staywith me.
The rabbit listened.
The rabbit listened as Taylortalked.
The rabbit listened as Taylorshouted.
(23:22):
The rabbit listened as Taylorremembered and laughed.
The rabbit listened as Taylormade plans to hide, to throw
everything away, to ruin thingsfor someone else.
Through it all, the rabbit neverleft.
And when the time was right, therabbit listened to Taylor's
(23:44):
plans to build again.
I can't wait, Taylor said.
It's going to be amazing.
(24:20):
Number one, if you got anythingout of this episode, if it made
you think, if you felt like youhave something new to try with
your kids or it made you abetter parent, please take a
moment to go and leave a reviewand rate this podcast five stars
wherever you're listening to it.
It's the single best way to helpmore parents find this show.
It'll take you less than aminute.
Just scroll down on your podcastapp, tap those stars, and if
(24:41):
you've got an extra 30 seconds,leave a couple words for me to
let me know how this podcast hasbeen helping you.
I read every single review.
It really means the world to me.
Number two, after you rate itand review it for the masses, I
really want to encourage you tothink about what we talked about
in this episode and send it toone parent in your phone who you
feel like might benefit fromthis specific episode.
(25:01):
It's great to have ratings andreviews, and yes, they help so
much, but there's nothing like apersonal recommendation from a
friend, hey, you gotta listen tothis.
It's really been helping me.
Last, if you want to go deeperwith me, get exclusive parenting
insights, free resources, andupdates on everything that I'm
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It's where I share things that Idon't get to get into on the
(25:23):
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go to the show notes below andthere'll be a link there.
Alright, that's it for now.
Thanks again for listening, andthank you in advance for doing
those three quick favors for me.
This has been the Whole ParentPodcast.
For thousands of years, humans have primarily
(00:02):
communicated meaning throughstories.
Our earliest account begins4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia,
where people are already tellingthe story of Gilgamesh, a king
who could conquer anything butdeath.
(00:22):
A story not about power, butabout the limits of power.
Around the same time in Egypt, asailor tells his panicked
commander about a shipwreck, astorm, and a giant serpent who
offers him comfort instead offear.
That's the shipwrecked sailor.
A story about how our fate isnot totally up to us.
(00:43):
In India, the stories were sung.
Hymns of the Rigvada carried forcenturies, word for word by
memory alone.
In Greece, blind poets likeHomer told of Odysseus, ten
years at sea, storms, gods,monsters, but really just
longing for home.
A story that spawned most ofwhat we see now in movie
(01:04):
theaters.
A hero's journey about howmeaning is found not in
conquest, but in return.
Then there's the Hebrewcarpenter from the backwater
town of Nazareth, who grew uplistening to stories and made up
his own stories about goodSamaritans, prodigal sons, and a
bunch of farmers.
And then he was gone.
And other people told storiesabout him, stories that would
(01:27):
shape our world for the next2,000 years.
Today we have our own sharedstories, our own myths.
Stories about real people likeGeorge Washington and Alexander
Hamilton, stories aboutfictional ones, Huck Finn,
Sherlock Holmes.
We also have our own personalstories.
The day we lost our innocence,the first time we knew grief,
(01:51):
the story of how we fell inlove, the day that we became a
parent.
Modern neuroscientists haveshown us what we've known for
millennia (01:59):
that humans make meaning from stories.
They are our tools to teach, toremember, connect, to make
meaning.
They're often called humanity'sgreatest invention.
So great, in fact, that we hadto invent other ways of telling
those stories.
From oral history to writing,from copied texts to printing
(02:21):
presses, and eventually massmarket publishing industry.
How we consume our stories willkeep changing, but they remain
our most valuable treasure, notonly for our well-being, but the
future of our world.
The stories we tell matter morethan almost anything else, and
if we're smart, they can becomeour greatest asset as parents.
(02:41):
Today on the Whole ParentPodcast, we're asking how
important are books in the lifeof a child?
We're going to dig into what theresearch says, we're going to
hear from one of the leadingvoices in children's literature,
and we're going to explore whyreading aloud might just be one
of the most revolutionary actsin parenting.
Let's dig into it.
(03:08):
Betsy Byrd is the kind of personwho knows more about children's
books than most people knowabout their own families.
She's a longtime librarian,former head of all children's
literature for the New YorkPublic Library System, and now
leading the collection atEvanston Public Library, the
place where I learned how toread.
She's reviewed children's books,written about children's books,
(03:29):
written children's booksherself.
You get it.
She loves children's books.
SPEAKER_01 (03:34):
I'm always fascinated, but particularly
when I encounter parents whodon't read to their babies,
don't read to their toddlersbecause they're like, well,
they're not gonna understand itat this point.
And I'm like, what do you thinkreading is?
It's making those connections,it's taking those synapses and
connecting them in the brain.
So from a very, very early age,if you can associate books with
(03:58):
cuddling with, you know, aparent or guardian, it can be
incredible.
SPEAKER_00 (04:04):
I want to pause here for a moment.
I used to think that bedtimestories were just, well, bedtime
stories.
Part of a bedtime routine.
Maybe a way to wind down, butultimately a tool to get kids to
sleep and avoid the dreaded, onemore cup of water, please.
But Betsy sees booksdifferently.
She sees them as tools and,well, brain food.
SPEAKER_01 (04:28):
Everyone's like talking about, like, oh, I want
my kid to be the smartest, Iwant my kid to be the best at
this, that, and the other.
But starting like right at zerobecause they move so fast.
Their brains are making theseconnections so incredibly
quickly.
If you can have any influence onthat, it's a good thing.
And books, my lord, books arethe cheapest, the most natural
(04:50):
way to do it.
SPEAKER_00 (04:51):
Okay, let's pause again and ask here
research to back this up?
Actually, yes.
A lot of it.
Studies from developmentalpsychology show that narrative
fiction, especially books withrich emotional content, can
significantly boost a child'stheory of mind.
For those not familiar with theterm, theory of mind is a
person's ability to understandthoughts, emotions, and
(05:13):
perspectives of someone else.
Basically, that not everyonethinks and experiences the world
as they do.
Kids don't come with theory ofmind built in.
It's something that they have todevelop over time.
Some kids have a harder timewith it than others, and books
can really help.
According to a 2013 study fromKidd and Costano, reading
(05:33):
literary fiction increasesempathy scores because of its
impact on the developing theoryof mind.
Here's how Betsy puts it.
SPEAKER_01 (05:41):
You're a small blob who has been dropped into a
crazy place, and now you havesomething that actually is going
to help you comprehend what allthis is.
Um, so it's a tool, it's a toolfor kids.
It's such an opportunity.
It's like, oh my god, like, youknow, you have a chance to make
(06:03):
a kid, you know, on likecomprehend the world.
SPEAKER_00 (06:07):
I want to stay on this point for a moment because
I think it's huge.
In my personal and professionalexperience, the single most
important tool for healthyrelationships is empathy.
People who are not empatheticparents, coworkers, friends, and
partners fail to fostermeaningful long-term
relationships that can last.
Let me say it clearly.
(06:27):
One of the most importantrelational skills that you can
teach to your child is to leadwith empathy.
And books are empathy machines.
Here's what John Green, aworld-renowned, best-selling
fiction and now nonfictionauthor says about books.
My case for books is that theyshrink the empathy gap.
(06:50):
Because when I read Catcher inthe Rye, Holden Caulfield isn't
my friend, my spouse, or myanything.
He's as close to I can come tobeing someone else.
And through the process ofimagining with clarity and
sophistication what it's like tobe someone else, we both learn
what it is to be ourselves, butall we also learn what it is to
(07:11):
be one of the other 8 billionpeople on this planet.
I don't think it's a hot take tosay that we live in a pretty
divided and conflicted world.
Over the summer, we saw aDemocratic lawmaker in Minnesota
(07:32):
assassinated in her own home.
Three weeks ago, Charlie Kirk,an extremely controversial and
popular voice in the far right,was killed on a college campus.
These murders, in many ways, arethe next escalation in a
political climate fraught withincreasing polarization.
I don't think it's really hardto see how we got here.
(07:54):
For the last decade, socialmedia algorithms have been
increasingly adept at keeping usin our own personalized echo
chambers, stoking our fears andour hatred to keep us online,
generating ad revenue for them.
Politicians, mediapersonalities, and yes, even our
social media creators, peoplelike me, have learned that the
best way to drive engagement andviews is by pushing people into
(08:15):
their camps, creating anever-flowing source of
controversy for the algorithmsto feed us.
All of this leads to oneunmistakable outcome the erasure
of our empathy.
We are no longer interested inunderstanding Holden Caulfield
like John Green.
We're now here to judge him andvenerate him or cancel him,
(08:36):
depending on whether he is onour side or not.
Go online and search this.
Look at your TikTok feed.
You'll hear takes like Holden isa misogynist or Holden is
misunderstood.
Or perhaps Holden is just aprophetic example of the male
loneliness epidemic.
Maybe Holden is a feministsatire.
Holden is a hero, Holden is avillain, Holden is brilliant,
(08:57):
Holden is just annoying, whiny,entitled.
Or maybe the truth is all of theabove.
The question is, what will ourkids think of Holden Caulfield?
Or maybe better said, will ourkids even know who he is?
SPEAKER_01 (09:17):
That's the thing, is that this isn't new.
We have waves of book banning atcertain times, and we always
have.
The difference now being it'sbetter organized.
You've got the internet.
Now you've got the internet.
Now people can get mad together.
Collective madness in everysense.
SPEAKER_00 (09:34):
For years, Catcher in the Rye, the book with Holden
as the protagonist, has beenuniversally accepted as one of
the great works of Americanfiction.
It's also been one of the mostbanned books in history.
Course language is often citedas a reason as well as sexual
content.
Notably here, though, by sexualcontent, what's depicted is
(09:54):
discussions about sex, notactually sex itself.
But then there are otherreasons.
Holden is a rebel strugglingwith depression and alienation
who questions authority andtraditional hierarchy.
Holden, in other words, is not ahero that advocates of that
traditional hierarchy wantyoung, impressionable children
to emulate.
SPEAKER_01 (10:15):
So the idea is that you are protecting children,
that there is something in thisliterature that is dangerous.
Whether it's giving kids ideasthey wouldn't have otherwise,
exposing them.
You know, the they don't want totalk about racial racial
diversity.
(10:35):
They'll say things are woke, butthey don't like the increase
necessarily in all these BIPOCcreators and characters in these
books.
So that's not great for them.
SPEAKER_00 (10:46):
Maybe, as some critics have pointed out,
Holden's curious and ambiguousreactions to the people he
meets, his constant admonitionthat everyone everywhere is fake
or, in his words, phony, hisveneration of these celibate
nuns that he meets, andespecially his own strained
relationship with his ownsexuality points to a different
conclusion.
(11:08):
Maybe the real reason we don'twant kids reading about Holden
is that he might be gay.
SPEAKER_01 (11:15):
So then on top of that, you have the LGBTQ stuff,
you know, and so that they feellike, oh, okay, that's a threat.
To know that this stuff exists,I guess, I'm a little unclear on
that one.
I think they think these bookswill turn their children gay,
which apparently is a terriblething.
But they they certainly justdon't want to wait, they just
(11:35):
don't want to deal with it.
And that's fine for your ownkids.
You don't want your kid to reada book.
That's your right.
You're a parent.
You don't you can keep your kidunless your kid's older and
finding books on their own.
Oh, that's where it comes into.
But you know, if you want yourkid to read that picture book,
you have the right to say don't.
Where you don't have the rightis to say that that person over
there, they should not bereading that book to their kid.
(11:57):
And that's where it all breaksdown.
But it's interesting in ahorrible way as well, because it
really does speak to the ideathat ideas are the dangerous
thing here.
That if you expose a kid toideas, I could not we're not
even going to get into likegraphic novels and stuff like
that, where there's visuals ontop of it, but these are just
words.
Um, and then you know, picturebooks with some pictures, but
they're always appropriate ifthey're in picture books.
(12:19):
And let us not forget, everysingle one of these books has
been vetted to even get into thelibrary.
There's a lot of schlack outthere that libraries are not
buying on a regular basis.
But we have trainedprofessionals, professionals who
have gone to school specificallyfor this purpose of deciding
what to and what not to buy forone community or another, but
(12:39):
apparently that is not goodenough.
And we must keep everyone'schildren from seeing these
things.
And that's where it gets realsquidgy.
The fact that in the age of theinternet, this is the threat.
I'm like, wow, okay.
Yeah.
Have you been online?
SPEAKER_00 (12:55):
This is an interview that I've been sitting with for
a while.
I conducted it over a year ago.
And it's this last quote fromBetsy that really has had me
thinking for basically thatwhole time.
In the age of the internet, thisis the threat.
And what I've finally come to isthat, yes, for the group of
(13:17):
people who wants to ban Catcherin the Rye, or John Green's
book, Looking for Alaska, or thenow infamous Not All Boys Are
Blue, I think these books arethe threat.
The threat that their childrenmight learn to perspective take
and empathize with groups thatthey want to erase.
Empathy is radicalizing.
(13:38):
Once you've empathized with anundocumented immigrant, it gets
harder to justify masked menabducting them off the street.
Once you've empathized with ablack protagonist, it becomes
harder to claim that racism isno longer an issue.
Once you've empathized with agay or lesbian or trans or
bisexual protagonist, it becomesharder to argue that they ought
(14:01):
not to exist.
Empathy, proximity, perspective,these are all incredibly
dangerous for those who want tohate.
It's why Hitler, a man bent onmaking people hate, had to first
burn the stories of Jews beforeturning to their bodies.
Stories are, as John says, thereto shrink our empathy gap.
(14:24):
And maybe that's the whole game.
(14:46):
And here's what she said.
SPEAKER_01 (14:48):
Immediately I thought of three books, two of
them from this year, one fromabout two or three years ago.
The one that if you haven'tencountered it already, it is
maybe one of the best books onboy.
It's just emotionally, it's justit's it disgusts you.
It's called The Rabbit Listenedby Corey Dorfeld.
And it is about how to deal withsomeone going through something
(15:11):
hard.
A kid is just building withbrick like blocks, someone
knocks him over.
Now the kid is like upset.
And all these different animalsare coming in to tell the kid
how to deal with this emotion.
Like you should get mad, likeyou should cry, like you should
like laugh it off, forget aboutit, you know.
And they're all and then therabbit finally comes in, and all
(15:31):
the rabbits tearing up,literally saying this.
The rabbit just listens.
And then the kid is able to gothrough all those different
things by talking to the rabbitwho's just there to listen.
It's so good.
It's so well done.
For me, it's kind of set thestandard for books like this
where it's like the message isso simple, but so hard for even
(15:53):
adults to get.
And it's just like, because itcould be any form of grief.
It doesn't have to be yourblocks being knocked down, but
that's such a kid-centric, likeunderstanding.
In a similar way, there'sanother kind of blocks being
knocked down book that's outthis year called I'm sorry you
got mad by Kyle Lukov.
And it is a series of apologies.
So a kid has done something andhas to write, according to their
(16:15):
teacher, a note to another kidin the class apologizing.
And the notes are like terrible,like at the start, like, you
know, sorry you got mad.
And then the teacher's like, tryagain.
And it's entirely epistolary.
It's entirely done through theseletters, and you slowly begin to
realize why this incidentoccurred.
The apologies start to getbetter and better until finally
(16:37):
you have a legitimately goodapology.
Again, this is a book that Ifeel like adults should be
reading like a lot of the timebecause it's just a really good
how-to-do an apology book, butit's also just very funny.
Um, Julie Kwan did the art forit and ended her kids.
It's just, she's never donehumor before.
She's done a lot of veryemotional, meaningful picture
(16:57):
books.
Nothing against those.
But this one is both emotional,meaningful, and very funny at
the same time, which is kind ofmy sweet spot.
It's kind of what I love.
And then there's another onethis year, and this was more on
the fun side, but again, it'sjust really good.
Um, called Touch the Sky byStephanie Lucianovic.
And it's about just learning topump your legs on a swing and
how hard that is.
(17:18):
And it's about how kids have toconstantly learn things that are
hard, like riding a bike orlearning how to pump.
And it's not the instant.
There was a I always say it'sthe Elmo situation where there's
an Elmo sequence on SesameStreet where Elmo hat wants to
learn the trumpet, tries thefirst time, doesn't get it,
tries the second time, doesn'tget it, tries the third time.
They're amazing at it.
And it's like, no, that's nothow learning things works.
(17:40):
It's like you've got to showkids.
And the pumping the legs intouch the sky is brilliant.
At the same time, very beautifulbook.
Chris Clark did the art and it'sjust rainbow amazing colors.
And then just funny.
It's very funny.
Like the kid like lying in thosewood chips under the swing,
being like, Maybe I'll live herenow.
Maybe this is easier thantrying.
(18:00):
And uh it's just a really goodshowing how long it takes to
learn something, though.
SPEAKER_00 (18:08):
I've struggled to know when I wanted to release
this episode.
I've had the interview for areally long time and tried to
figure out exactly what I wantedto say.
But I felt like it was importantto release it this week, the
beginning of season three.
Because as I've been seeing atall of the local libraries that
we go to, and by the way, notincluded in our conversation,
(18:30):
was a long section where Betsygoes into depth about how
libraries are not just aboutbooks.
They're about story time andscavenger hunts and ways to take
your kid somewhere that doesn'tcost a bunch of money in the
middle of winter in Chicago whenyou just need a place to go with
your toddler.
As we have been going to all oflibraries, which is one of our
(18:51):
favorite things to do, we'venoticed posters up everywhere
that this week, beginningOctober 5th, is Banned Books
Week.
It's a week about awareness thatsome stories are under a greater
threat than they have been,maybe in our lifetimes.
It's massively important that wekeep those stories.
Not because I agree with all ofthem.
(19:13):
Betsy also talked about inanother place in our interview
how sometimes the banning comesfrom the other side.
People wanting to ban books thathave implicitly racist or
misogynistic content baked in.
Children's books like Tiki TikiDembo, or one of the most famous
examples from Dr.
Seuss.
It's important to keep all ofthese stories because they tell
(19:37):
the true story of what it is tobe human.
They shrink our empathy gap.
They are tools, perhaps thegreatest tool that we have for
teaching our children emotionalintelligence, perspective
taking, and love for the amazingworld that is around them.
(19:58):
To end this episode, I wanted toread to you one of the books
that Betsy pointed out.
My favorite of the three,although all three are really
good, and you can get them andyou should get them.
But the one that is my favoriteis The Rabbit Listened.
It's the one that she talked themost about.
And I wanted to read it to youat the end of our episode to
(20:20):
remind you that in spite of allof the hard things that we've
talked about, our most importantjob as parents, the best thing
that we can do for our kids isto be people who listen.
(20:47):
One day, Taylor decided to buildsomething.
Something new.
Something special.
Something amazing.
Taylor was so proud.
But then out of nowhere, thingscame crashing down.
(21:09):
The chicken was the first tonotice.
Clack clock.
What a shame.
I am so sorry, sorry, thishappened.
Let's talk to talk to talk totalk about it.
Clack clock but Taylor didn'tfeel like talking.
So the chicken left.
Next came the bear.
(21:32):
How horrible.
I bet you feel so angry.
Let's shout about it.
But Taylor didn't feel likeshouting.
So the bear left.
The elephant knew just what todo.
(21:53):
I can fix this.
We just need to remember exactlyhow things were.
But Taylor didn't feel likeremembering.
So the elephant also left.
One by one they came.
The hyena.
Let's laugh about it.
(22:14):
The ostrich.
What's hard and pretend nothinghappened.
The kangaroo.
Let's throw it all the way.
And the snake.
Someone else.
(22:37):
But Taylor didn't feel likedoing anything with anybody.
So eventually, they all left.
Until Taylor was alone.
In the quiet, Taylor didn't evennotice the rabbit.
But it moved closer and closer.
(23:00):
Until Taylor could feel its warmbody.
Together they sat in silence.
Until Taylor said, please staywith me.
The rabbit listened.
The rabbit listened as Taylortalked.
The rabbit listened as Taylorshouted.
(23:22):
The rabbit listened as Taylorremembered and laughed.
The rabbit listened as Taylormade plans to hide, to throw
everything away, to ruin thingsfor someone else.
Through it all, the rabbit neverleft.
And when the time was right, therabbit listened to Taylor's
(23:44):
plans to build again.
I can't wait, Taylor said.
It's going to be amazing.
(24:20):
Number one, if you got anythingout of this episode, if it made
you think, if you felt like youhave something new to try with
your kids or it made you abetter parent, please take a
moment to go and leave a reviewand rate this podcast five stars
wherever you're listening to it.
It's the single best way to helpmore parents find this show.
It'll take you less than aminute.
Just scroll down on your podcastapp, tap those stars, and if
(24:41):
you've got an extra 30 seconds,leave a couple words for me to
let me know how this podcast hasbeen helping you.
I read every single review.
It really means the world to me.
Number two, after you rate itand review it for the masses, I
really want to encourage you tothink about what we talked about
in this episode and send it toone parent in your phone who you
feel like might benefit fromthis specific episode.
(25:01):
It's great to have ratings andreviews, and yes, they help so
much, but there's nothing like apersonal recommendation from a
friend, hey, you gotta listen tothis.
It's really been helping me.
Last, if you want to go deeperwith me, get exclusive parenting
insights, free resources, andupdates on everything that I'm
doing, go ahead and join myemail list.
It's where I share things that Idon't get to get into on the
(25:23):
podcast.
I also will let you know aboutupcoming episodes and events,
and best of all, it's completelyfree.
You can sign up atwholeparentacademy.com or just
go to the show notes below andthere'll be a link there.
Alright, that's it for now.
Thanks again for listening, andthank you in advance for doing
those three quick favors for me.
This has been the Whole ParentPodcast.
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