Episode 210: Curiosity, Courage, and Hope: Maggie Tokuda-Hall on Science Museums, Snow Monkeys, and the Freedom to Read

What do paleontologists, exhibit designers, snow monkeys, haiku, picture books, and the fight against book bans have in common? They all begin with curiosity, and with the belief that young people deserve to ask big questions, see themselves in stories, and explore the world freely.

About This Episode

In Episode 210 of the Adventures in Learning podcast, we welcome Maggie Tokuda-Hall, author of Love in the Library; The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea; The Siren, the Song, and the Spy; and so many more unforgettable books for young readers.

Maggie joins me to celebrate the release of two new picture books: What Do People Do at the Science Museum?, illustrated by Qin Leng, and Bath Time for Snow Monkeys, illustrated by Yas Imamura.

We explore the joy of science museums (a subject close to my heart), the many people who work behind the scenes to make discovery possible, and why children need to know that a scientist can be an artist, a paleontologist, an exhibit builder, a greeter, a researcher, or anyone with questions and curiosity. Maggie also shares the story behind her gentle, playful snow monkey bedtime book, written in haiku and inspired by the quiet, connected moments of bath time with her own young child.

Then we turn to a conversation that is urgent for all of us who love books: the right to read. Maggie offers a powerful behind the scenes look at the founding and growth of Authors Against Book Bans, practical advice for educators and families facing challenges, and a compelling reminder that hope is not something we wait for. It is something we practice, protect, and fight for.

Chapters

• 01:26:What Do People Do at the Science Museum?
• 02:09:Science careers beyond the white lab coat
• 03:54:Behind the scenes: the people who make museums possible
• 05:28:Raising curious museum goers
• 07:12:Bath Time for Snow Monkeys: haiku, calm, and connection
• 09:22:Writing toward an illustrator’s vision: Yas Imamura
• 11:28:Haiku as story, heritage, and a mentor text
• 13:01:Maggie's adventures in learning
• 15:51:Influences, artistic admiration, and the joy of children’s literature
• 19:32:Diverse books, creative risk, and beyond the single story
• 23:50:Authors Against Book Bans: why the work began
• 30:57:Protecting the right to read: practical steps for educators
• 34:25:How families and community members can take action
• 37:46:Hope as a discipline and a warrior emotion

Featured Books by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

• What Do People Do at the Science Museum?, illustrated by Qin Leng
• Bath Time for Snow Monkeys, illustrated by Yas Imamura
• Love in the Library, illustrated by Yas Imamura

Organizations Mentioned

• American Library Association/United Against Book Bans
• PEN America
• School Library Journal
• Every Library
• Authors Against Book Bans

Classroom Connections

Maggie's two new picture books offer so many openings for learning through play, inquiry, literacy, poetry, and STEAM.

Ideas forWhat Do People Do at the Science Museum?,

• Create a “Who Makes a Museum?” class chart. Include scientists, researchers, educators, designers, artists, builders, greeters, exhibit technicians, writers, and visitors.
• Invite children to design their own curated museum exhibit about something they are curious about.
• Pair the book with a visit to a science museum, aquarium, children’s museum, natural history museum, zoo, or nature center. Allow the children's questions to help spark discovery.
• Ask: “What kinds of questions would you like a museum to help you investigate?”

Ideas for Bath Time for Snow Monkeys

• Read the book slowly and notice how haiku creates mood, movement, and stillness.
• Use the book as a mentor text for writing sensory poems about water, weather, animals, family routines, or calming moments.
• Explore the science of snow monkeys, hot springs, habitats, and animal behavior.
• Create watercolor, collage, or movement responses inspired by the book’s shifting palette and monkey expressions.

Join the Fight for the Freedom to Read:

We need everyone’s help to fight for the freedom to read. Here are some things you can do from Authors Against Book Bans:

• Stand: Stand with school libraries and tell your member of Congress to co-sponsor the Right to Read Act. 
• Call: Contact your representative and ask them to support the Fight Book Bans Act H.R. 6596
• Register. Show up. Vote. Vote in all elections and don’t forget the local ones! Voting in your local school and library board elections is one of the most effective ways you can protect the freedom to read. If you’re already registered to vote, get FIVE of your friends to register. Then grab those friends and head to the polls together.
• Act locally: Attend your local library and school board meetings. Learn how your community addresses and assesses book challenges and what books, if any, have been banned. Introduce yourself to your school and local librarians and ask how you can help. 
• Speak Out: Most school and library board meetings have time for public comment. Sign up to speak about why the freedom to read is critically important in your community and why censorship is both dangerous and damaging to everyone.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Adventures in Learning Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Bayon Jackson Schnorr. I am thrilled to welcome Maggie Tapahall to the show with us today. She's got not one, but two books coming out this fall. The first one is Backtime for Snow Monkeys, which is delightful. And the other one, which is very near and dear to my Fruits Museum art, is What Do People Do at the Science Museum? She has written so many incredible books that if you do not have a Maggie Dekuta Hall book on your bookshelf, you need to run out and do it right now. And we're gonna have a marvelous conversation about her books as well as her work with authors against book fans. Important work for our time. Wonder, Curiosity, Connection.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Where will your adventures take you? I'm Dr. Diane, and thank you for joining me on today's episode of Adventures in Learning.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

Maggie, welcome to the show. Diane, thank you so much for having me. I am so thrilled to have you. I was very excited when these books came across my desk because I love science and I love picture books and what's more perfect than these two books. Let's start a little bit with the upcoming books. Tell us about what they are, why they're important, and sort of what inspired you because you write all over the place. Like I love that. Your mind goes to, I think, your interests, and that's what comes forward.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Yeah, you're exactly right. I write to the things that I think are cool and exciting and get my engines going. So What Do People Do at the Science Museum is a book that I actually wrote in 2017. This is the longest it's ever been between when I wrote a book to when a book has come out.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

And at the time, I hosted an animal facts podcast. And so many of the people who helped me vet the content for this book were guests from that podcast. I loved different Scicom professionals who I had kind of gotten to know just from their online profiles. And I was so excited about their work. And I'm also in the Bay Area where we have both the Lawrence Hall of Science and the California Academy of Sciences, which are two really great science institutions. And before I even had children, I loved going there just as an adult, sometimes to sketch, sometimes just to wander and have questions. The academy opened back up when I was still a bookseller and it was like so exciting. I got membership in their inaugural year. And one of the things that's so wonderful about it is that it's kind of like a buffet of information. Like you get to walk through these spaces and spend more time in the places that you're interested and maybe scoot past the places you're less interested. But there's always more to find. And there's so many people who make that possible for this sort of like survey of science. And focusing on the different people was really exciting to me because I'm curious and I'm nosy and I like knowing what people's days are like, and I like knowing what they do and giving kids sort of like an overview of all the different ways that you can be a scientist, I thought was really fun. Because I know in my childhood I really thought of scientists as like white coats, that's it, the end. You got it. And it and it being like very inaccessible and very like you had to be a genius to do it, which isn't to say that scientists aren't smart, they absolutely are. But like I had this idea in my head that you had to be Albert Einstein or like get out. And I like with this book that it's really so many different types of people. I hope the little dialogue interactions make them feel more human and make them feel like people that you could talk to, because that's exactly who they are. They are just people who you can talk to, and they're people who kids can become if they are so inclined. And so I had a really, I think the most fun I've ever had researching for a book was with this one because I got to talk to just so many cool people.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

You know, and I love the way that you pull back the curtain on the museum world because I was a museum educator for years. Oh, cool. I worked in a children's museum, and kids would wonder, you know, how did these exhibits happen? Who was part of it? And they didn't realize that there were so many people behind the scenes who were helping to create these different things for them. And they were people just like their parents or their grandparents, you know, normal human beings. And you said it really well. I grew up sort of thinking that if you were in a STEM career, you had to be like the lab coat or you know, something like that as well. And I love the fact that this opens the door to there are so many possibilities if you want to make a difference in that world. You can be an artist, you can be somebody with a fascination with dinosaurs or you know, any of those things. You can enjoy putting things together with your hands and that contributes to it. Or you might be social and really like greeting people. And that's part of it too. They need people who make you feel welcome.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I feel like it's worth mentioning that the paleontologist that I talk to a lot, Lee Hall, got into paleontology because he watched Jurassic Park as a kid. Like, I can't think of a more accessible route in than the biggest blockbuster of our childhood making someone into a real life paleontologist. Um, but it is like it is that accessible. Like if you are curious and you are excited, this is a place that you can go. And this is, you know, the start of a very long life if you want it to be, of curiosity and inquiry.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

And you mentioned you have kids. I'm gonna guess you travel to and you go to museums wherever you go. Is that a good guess?

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Uh oh no. Sometimes they're three and six. So three-year-olds like a little small for some. Like I haven't really taken them to as many art museums as I should have, like, or history museums, like, but science museums I find very accessible for them. And so, yes, we've gone to quite a few science museums and aquariums with them, but not, but maybe not as many museums as I intend to take them to eventually. But three years old is that's a tough, that's a tough gig.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

No, you've got so much time. My kids would tell you they're now 23 and 26. So I got 20 years on you.

SPEAKER_03 6:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Um, but they will tell you that even before I was working for a museum, I would drag them places. But, you know, we started with by doing small things. Like in New York, we would go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a Sunday morning because they would do these incredible art classes where they would take a docent would take you to two exhibits and they would generally be something that wasn't, you know, that everybody wasn't crowding around. So it might be in one of the global, diverse, cool sections of the museum and then compare it to the ancient Greece and Rome stuff that everybody was crowding around. Yeah. And they would have you draw the things and they would tell you things, but they made it kid friendly. It was one of those things that made me realize that even the museums that felt scary and inaccessible to me wound up being magical with a kid. You know, the different ways to sort of make that happen. And then I love the museums that are truly geared towards kids, and we adults are allowed to go along, you know, to hang out. The Eric Carl Museum being one of those. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about a museum that works on multiple levels. I love this. And I noticed your curiosity extends to so many other places as well. Tell me where Bath Time for Snowmonkeys came from.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Yeah. So kind of from two places with that one. Um, so it's illustrated by Yaz Imamura, who illustrated Love in the Library. Um, and I am Yaz's number one fan. I'm sure she has family that would like to take that mantle, but like, sorry. And after working with her with Love in the Library, I just really, really wanted to work with her again. I think that she is so talented and she has such a brilliant sensibility. And I find that when I try to bend my writing toward her sensibility, that I become a better writer. And so I wanted to write a book with Yaz again. So I was looking through her website and she had a picture of snow monkeys that she had just done for fun, as like an illustrator that you could buy prints of. And that print is now hanging in one of my bathrooms at home. And I also at the time of writing it had a two-year-old son who he was still at the age where it was easier to just get in the bath with him than it was to try to bathe him and stay dry on the outside. Like I just tried and failed that enough times that I was like, well, here's the deal. We just take baths together because that's easier. And I just loved the moments where he could be calm and we would be calm together. And it felt like this really beautiful, like zen moment for both of us of like deep connection and relaxation. And then also he's a two-year-old boy. So, you know, like those were fleeting. And so Bathtime to Snow Monkeys is both like written explicitly for Yaz to illustrate, and also for my little kids. And like that feeling that you have as a parent of like, isn't it beautiful when we realize not like that? Really. And so I hope that, you know, kids will think it's a little funny and that adults will relate to it. It's also written entirely in haiku, which is something I've always wanted to do. This is no insult to the books in haiku that I have read before, but they have almost exclusively been written by white people. And I was excited to take the poetic tradition from my heritage and, you know, use it. And I tried to, you know, instill the same values that I understood from that poetic tradition of like appreciation for the natural world, that as many of them as possible, even though I'm trying to do a plot, should be able to stand on their own as a poem. And it was a real pleasure to write. And I like just can't believe how wonderful Yaz's illustrations came out. And it's gotten to the point now where I'm writing books that I turn in and I say, if Yaz isn't going to illustrate this, then I don't want to sell it. Um and so there's like, we have one more coming, and we've been talking about like what we want to do next, but she's so talented. And I feel like on this one, it looks so different than Love in the Library. The palette is so different and the expressiveness and how much movement there is in so many of these illustrations in this like incredibly still place. She managed to find like every point of movement that exists. And I thought that that was so beautiful. And I don't know, I just I think she's incredible, and I'm blown away by what she she ultimately turned in for this book.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

Do you have a favorite spread or a favorite page that you'd like me to hold up? Gosh.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

I mean God, what is my favorite one? I think the one after the reconciliation. So the big monkey or the baby monkey kind of goes ham and is like chitter chitter cheeping around, then calms down. Yes. And there's that reconciliation with the parent monkey and the baby monkey being so calm and all the other monkeys returning to the calm that I love so much. And oh, sorry, no, it's that one. That's the one I'm thinking of. That is so beautiful. I don't know, just give you as the Caldecott. That's what I think. Like, let's just do that.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

It's just beautiful. And there's so much in it in terms of the animals and the palette. And I love the way that the illustrations extend your poems as well. And I know that often in elementary school, we're quick to teach haiku. We teach the five, seven, five. And totally, yeah. And what I love about this is it gives kids a real, a real palette for how it works. And to see how you can use haiku to tell a story. And as you said, you're doing it from your heritage, which makes it even more special and deep because it gives a real culturally based example of it. I hope so. Yeah. Well, it's a beautiful book. And I could see it working not just for little ones and their parents, but working all the way through into middle school and beyond as you're teaching poetic device as well. So hopefully it will make a mentor text for our older students as well as for our younger, younger kids seeking comfort.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Yeah, fingers crossed. I hope that it also just functions as like a good, good night book of like, you know, those ones that actually help bring the vibe to a calmer place can often be really trying to be polite. Some of them are boring.

unknown 12:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Sorry. Don't. And I hope that this one isn't. And I hope that it has that the writing brings enough to give it something of interest. But I feel extremely confident that Yaz's illustrations bring something that will allow it to evade that.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Oh, I think it's going to be a beautiful book. And I strongly encourage people to check them both out. Maggie, I want to turn back just a little bit for our listeners and ask a quick question about you. Um, let's talk a little about your adventures in learning. Like you weren't always a writer. You know, you alluded to some of the other things you've done in the past. If a kid were wondering how do I become an author who writes in such different avenues, what would you tell them? How did you get there?

SPEAKER_00 13:29

I would say that being a writer is always an invitation to be curious. And that the point of making art is to make something that nobody else has made before. And that means you get to be totally free. You get to do what is most exciting and interesting to you. And that can change all the time. It doesn't have to be the same kind of thing every single time. I really love and respect a lot of authors who have really strong brands. Like when I pick up a Sarah Desson book, I know what I'm getting, and I love that for me, and I love that for her. And then when I pick up, you know, an Oliver Jeffers book, I know exactly what I'm getting. And that's great. I also really love when I pick up an author and none of their books have anything in common. There are people like Catherine Locke, who write that way that I find fascinating, or Laurel Snyder. And I think that's such a pleasure. And it is, it reminds me a little bit of the old internet, of where you'd pick it up and it would be people with their incredibly niche interests, and you'd be reminded of humanity's like boundless enthusiasm and possibility for strange things. And I love coming into contact with that because there are so many pressures, especially on young people, to like have a brand and be like know who you were right away. And who I was, even when I wrote who what happens at the science museum is completely different than the person I am now and the kind of thing that I would write now. And I think that that's really fun and exciting. And I love having these books that are like snapshots of who I was in these different periods of time. My very first book, which I still get invited to read places now and again, a totally different person wrote that. I wrote that in 2011 and I'm still reading it in 2026. 15 years ago, my life was unfathomably different than the life that I live now. And I hope that children feel open to the like boundless possibility of art and life, because to me, those are very much the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

I love that. And you're right. We're not the same person at 20 that we are at 35 or at 55 or at 75. And so we're going to bring different life experiences and different interests to what we do, no matter what field we're in. Yeah. So are there particular authors and illustrators that have influenced you as you've moved along your career, things that you love to read again and again?

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Yes, of course. I mean, I think for my young adult work, Octavia Butler is probably the biggest influence on sort of the moral and ethical trajectory of my work and what I'm interested in. MT Anderson is the author who made me want to write young adults. I remember reading Feed and feeling like, oh, that he's another author where every book is totally different and whose career I have watched with like incredible admiration. And then on the picture book front, I feel like I there are people who I look to, but my biggest challenge when I write picture books is to try to make sure I'm never aping somebody else's style or sensibility. Like John Clausen comes to mind as like one of my most favorite practitioners of the form. I think that he is brilliant. But I can't write like John Clausen, and nor should I try, because it'll always just read like a poor man's John Clausen, and I'm not interested in that gig, even though, like, you know, I'm sure I've liked a few books that are kind of poor man John Claussen's. And then there are illustrators like Julia Sarda and Katya Chen, whose work I look at with like deep admiration and excitement, and who to me kind of blow open what I feel is possible in storytelling for these ages. And God, I just like it's such a vibrant and exciting time to be in children's literature. And I'm so enthralled by so many of my colleagues' work. I keep a little list that I will keep private to myself of picture books that I consider perfect. No notes, nothing, not a single page where there's even the minutest detail out of out of whack. And what I've noticed is it keeps growing. And I'm very snobby and like unkind when I'm by myself as a critic. Like the thoughts that I keep to myself are often very ungenerous and exacting. And the fact that that list can grow despite my personality disorder is incredible.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

I think what I'm hearing is you know what you like, but you're gracious enough to keep it to yourself.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Exactly. There are things that belong in the the group text, you know, among your closest friends and nowhere else in the world. And I'm a huge proponent of that, especially as people who create because opinions they're free. Yeah. Yeah. We all have them. And in that way, they're deeply uninteresting. And so, but I still love that, you know, people will pop out of completely left field, creators who I'd never heard of before, who or whose previous work I was not impressed by, will turn something out that I think, oh my God, like that's a perfect book. And that possibility for achievement and creation is so invigorating to me that even as I become more and more at times frustrated with sort of the capitalism of it all in our industry and the systems of oppression that are always present in our work, that there are still so much, there's still so much richness in our genre and in our in our entire category of art is thrilling and just so exciting. I mean, I'm writing books at the same time as Christian Robinson, and I think that that's pretty cool. It's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

Yeah. You know, and you you just raised an interesting tension that I know any of us who follow children's literature and love children's literature are aware of. Yeah. On one hand, I think we're in a golden age. To a degree, you know, we've got these beautiful, diverse voices. We've got so many more options to read to our kids to be able to share, to touch on any issue. You know, I I love Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop. I love the notion of windows and mirrors and sliding glass doors. And I feel like those books exist in a way that they didn't when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

No. And when I was a kid either. Like it just the amount of new people who are allowed to have voices now, even as that is being attacked and being taken away. Um I love seeing somebody stridently be confrontationally their marginalized self on the page because that did not previously exist in so such a high quantity before. And I love, I frankly, I love the opportunity for marginalized people to make mediocre books because white people have had that opportunity for centuries. And I absolutely say it. Like I want to see our bad books, I want to see our mediocre books, and I want to see our excellence. And I'm getting to see all of it, and I find that really thrilling.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

I agree. I do a calendar for educators and parents. It's 365 days of picture books. And each day includes questions for, you know, discussion, promoting empathy and connection, as well as a stem or steam possibility you can do with stuff at home. And as I, and I went to lots of bookshelves and I read lots of books as I sat in libraries and sat in bookstores. And what I found was thrilling is as you said, there's a wide range. And it's lovely to see that there is that range from mediocre to excellent.

SPEAKER_03 21:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

But it wasn't hard to fill that list with 365 excellent picture books. Yes. Things that push the boundaries. And that was my goal is I wanted things that families might not pick up for themselves initially. But when they do, they go, Oh, wow, I didn't know this was here. You know, and things that would get me banned in certain states as well. And I don't care, of course.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Yeah. But I think if your book list wouldn't get banned in At least one state, I don't want your book list. That's genuinely how I feel about it.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Now, I tend to agree with you on that, and I think that the whole we'll talk about that in a minute, the whole notion of banning books is ridiculous to me. Yeah. Imagine a space where curiosity drives innovation, where empathy fuels collaboration, and where learning feels less like a task and more like an adventure. My message isn't about adding more to your plate, it's about changing how you see the plate entirely. I'm Dr. Diane Jackson Schnorr, and through the power of purposeful play, I equip leaders, educators, and organizations with the tools you need to unlock creative problem solving, deepen human connection, and build resistant ecosystems of empathy and innovation. Attendees will walk away not just inspired but empowered, with immediately usable strategies to spark curiosity in teams, to lead with empathy, and to infuse learning into their everyday cultures. You'll learn how play isn't child's work, it's the secret weapon of the world's most effective leaders and change makers. This is not a feel-good talk that fades by Monday morning, it's a movement. A shift in how we engage people, solve problems, and lead meaningful change. My talks and workshops are shaped by decades of experience in education and a transformative message that connects across sectors. Whether your audience is corporate, educational, or nonprofit, they'll leave ready to rethink what's possible, both personally and professionally. Because when we learn and lead through play, we don't just change organizations, we change the world. Check it out at drdianeadventures.com. You know, I've been thinking a lot about freedom to read and, you know, the idea that we should be supporting the opportunity of choice and being able to pick up these books. And I know that you have you have done amazing work with authors against book bands. Can you talk a little bit about how that organization started and why? Because it's a really interesting backstory. And I know that you poured your heart and soul into it. And I'm proud to say I'm a member of it. So thank you for letting me.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Oh, thank you. Thank you. I love that. Um so it kind of came away up two different ways. And I'll I'll speak to the way that it came up for me personally. Um, I wrote a book called Love in the Library. There was some controversy over it about a year after it published because Scholastic offered me a licensing deal that was contingent upon me basically removing any language from the author's note that might make this book harder to sell in markets where books are banned. And I refused to, and I refuse to publicly, and because of that, I ended up being invited to be the keynote speaker at the Idaho Library Association. And I gave my little speech that I've been giving a lot then, that I'm proud of. It was a good speech. People always think I'm being self-deprecating when I tell this story, and I'm I'm not. But the emotional reaction to the speech was really intense. Like the librarians were on their feet, they were weeping. It was a lot. And I was like, well, something is going on here. Because I've given this speech quite a bit. And it had gotten like a standing ovation before, but not with like tears streaming down people's faces and them visibly crying. And I was like, well, what is going on here? And over the course of that weekend, I heard their stories and they were chilling about being followed home from work, about being doxxed, about death threats, about being called pedophiles and groomers, all for the crime of being librarians. And I told myself after that weekend that like I'd be damned if I let them fight alone. And so I had a really half-baked, unintelligent plan that I was gonna like punk rock a book ban alert network, because apparently that's so easy. Um, and I was like, nobody's telling authors when their books get banned. And like, yeah, I would like to know. And like, you know, it's hard to even know when you've been banned. There is no central like alert place. And so I reached out to David Levithan because he's a friend, and because I knew he was really well connected with Penn. And I knew Penn was sort of the keepers of the best data on book bands. And I was like, you know, would they be willing to work with me, like to share their data with me for this cause? And he's like, I'm sure they would. And I'm I'm sure I'd be happy to connect you, but I'm already working with a group of like five other authors, and we haven't had our first meeting yet of potentially like trying to organize authors around book bands and like fighting back. Do you want to do that? And I was like, oh, that's that's much better and that's much smarter. Yes, it would be much better to go in with a team than by myself. I don't know what I was thinking. And that was the beginning of authors against book bands. And I think when we started, we really thought we would be kind of like a social network that would sort of like alert people. And what became immediately clear was that there was no central leadership in this fight. And many of the legacy nonprofits that are doing incredible work in this space are also not singularly focused on book bands as an issue. And as such, sometimes things fell through the cracks, you know? And for authors, this is deeply personal. Every book matters to us, every single one. And so we really started with the ethos of all for one and one for all, but that has been a deeply definitional like ethos for us, as has been our incredibly focused, single-issue focus. Like we have had a lot of really emotional and difficult conversations about issues that we ultimately decided not to comment on or not to be participate in, because it was just two inches to the right of where we know we need to focus. And that can be really frustrating for somebody like me who cares deeply about this in all of its forms. But it is the reason that we have been able to be what I believe as effective as possible, being up until this year, a completely volunteer organization. But when we became a nonprofit corporation at the end of 2025 and started fundraising fundraising in 2026, we raised enough to hire a project manager for authors against book bands. And so we are no longer a total volunteer organization. We now have a paid employee whose single purview is just to keep us organized and to, you know, help us make sure that all the ideas we have come to fruition, which is thrilling. For the last two years, I've been serving as our inaugural president. And I did that in part because I was the only person on the board who could say, I'm gonna spend at least one year. This is all I'm doing. I'm not writing, I'm not promoting, I'm running Authors Against Book Bands. And it took my full-time attention to still fail at so many things. And so I'm really excited that I have stepped down from the presidency of Authors Against Book Bands as of July 1st. Catherine Locke has stepped up. Their professional background is in managing nonprofits and specifically in member management, which we deeply need help with. And we've hired Shainee, Sinee, who is incredible and comes out of the HBCU library system and is already like within the first week of her being hired, I was like, this is the best thing that's ever happened to me personally. She just, she's so organized and she's so calm. And so I feel so confident about authors against book bands growing into the next stage that it needs to be, which is into a professionalized organization that can have answers that are not ad hoc and can give everyone the tools they need to fight and to just be present in more places. And so I don't know. I'm just I'm I'm at a moment right now where I am on a month-long break from working on authors against book bands because after three years of it being my full-time job, I'm a little burnt out, as you might guess. But I think the number one thing that I have learned personally from this experience is one of the best traits you can have as a leader is to be self-aware of your own deficiencies and to be comfortable stepping aside when those deficiencies are in the way of that organization becoming what it needs to be. And so I feel really excited and at peace with the next step because I feel like I took it as far as I could. And I'm so excited to see what Catherine does with it next.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

I love that. And for those who are listening who maybe are feeling, as you said, about the librarians, feeling pressure, feeling anxiety, feeling pain. And I know that crosses the board, there's so many teachers who are afraid to share books because of these external pressures. What would you tell them, you know, based on your own journey, based on what you've learned with the authors against book bands, how could you take steps to sort of protect the right to read for themselves and their families and their children?

SPEAKER_00 31:31

On a practical level, it's getting to know what the book challenge policy in your school district is. That's the number one thing and pushing for it to have an exact process. If there is not an exacting process in place, then start moving the levers so that that gets created. But on a philosophical level, what I would warn anyone who's dealing with this is this isn't if you give a mouse a cookie situation, but it's if you give a fascist anything. They will not stop there. Every time we have bent thinking, okay, if we just take this one book off the shelf, then maybe they will be quiet. That's never what happens. They become emboldened and they come for all of it. And I don't mean to be alarmist, but we are at an alarming crossroads with this. There are four national bills that are seeking to ban books from every public school in the country at this point. And so we cannot afford to cede a single inch. We just can't. And I always want to be careful because I understand that people lose their jobs over this and that that in this time of crushing late-stage capitalism is a question of survival. And I'm not advocating for people to throw themselves on the train tracks at something that, you know, they cannot slow down. But I would urge all of us to figure out ahead of time where our red line is on the thing that we won't do and to write it down and to hold ourselves to it. And that red line's going to be in different places for different people, and that's okay. But you need to know now because it's coming.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

That makes a lot of sense. And I've been following those different bills you're talking about. And now is the time to make the phone calls, to write the letters, to stand strong in support of your libraries, because the right to read ties into our First Amendment rights. And if we give an inch on those, you're right. We've given over our futures in so many ways. And that sounds alarmist, but it's true.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

I think one of the things that helps people wrap their heads around the magnitude of the problem or the change in what freedom means in this country is that in Florida, they have made the legal argument that banning books from public libraries is the government's protected First Amendment right to free speech. The face you're making is exactly correct. It's the stupidest upside-down fascist argument, but it's working. And so we are currently the idea of the First Amendment being in protection of the people is under threat. And one of the places that you can protect that is in your own school and in your own library.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

That makes a lot of sense. Do you have other suggestions for people who want to help, you know, people who can step forward? Maybe their red line is in a different spot, that they've got a little more freedom to step forward than somebody whose job might be in jeopardy right now. Yeah. I know you've seen so much over the last, not just the last two and a half years, but certainly since you began this Odyssey, are are there additional suggestions if you've got a little more privilege and you can step forward, things that you can do that would be useful and supporting?

SPEAKER_00 34:58

I mean, I think being unequivocal about what's happening and educating children and the people in your life about what's happening. I think a lot of the time, I mean, my personal network is pretty sick of me talking about it at this point because it's been my full-time purview for so long. But many people that I'm confronted with have no idea the magnitude of what we're facing right now. And I understand why, because our neighbors are being kidnapped and killed. And because, you know, another forever war has been started in another country, we're bombing children's hospitals. There are things with higher, more immediate stakes happening right now. And it can feel really hard to be like, hey, guess what? I have a further bummer for you to examine. But unfortunately, one of like people still need to know. And so just letting people know on a personal level can be extremely powerful and letting them know what they can do too. Things like contacting their school board reps and knowing who their school board reps are and what their beliefs about these things are, or calling their reps in Congress or the Senate, because as mentioned, there are four bills now that seek to ban books. And you can find out more about that at the Authors Against Book Bans Instagram page. They have really good explainers. I don't want to, it would take all of our time for me to explain all of them. But uh in short, there's a new Senate one whose number I don't remember because it got introduced while I was on sabbatical and I've been trying really hard not to look at it, but I think it's like 4265. It's a companion belt, it's 2616. There's 7661, and there's 8705. And all of them will ban books from every public school in the country. And our reps need to know that this is not a way to pick up easy political expedients. They need to know that this is something that will stain their record. And the more of us who call and make us think about it, the better. And that's especially true in red districts. I know a lot of people feel like if I live in a red place, it's not even worth calling my rep. But a lot of them privately are sick of the book banning issue. So let's make them sicker of it. Let's just make it as annoying to them as possible. Put on your best care in voice, be the most demanding to speak to the manager person you've ever been in your life and call these reps. It is the time and it is the place to exercise that energy.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

I love that. So if you're listening, you can unleash your inner care and in support our right to read and to battle book banning.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

Yes, exactly. I know I have one, and she wants to come out every time I see someone driving too fast through my neighborhood. And instead, I save it for my reps.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

I love that. That's great. So, Maggie, I do want to ask you a question to end on maybe a slightly more hopeful note. I always like to ask people what is currently bringing you hope right now? Because even in the middle of all the darkness, we're still embracing beauty and finding joy. And certainly your two books, and particularly Bath Time for Snow Monkeys, do that. But what's currently bringing you reason to hope?

SPEAKER_00 38:14

I get asked this a lot. And I feel like I have no choice but to give my real answer, which is I don't look for reasons to have hope. I believe that hope is something that is my own daily discipline and responsibility to create. Other people have spoken about this much more intelligently and wisely than I have. Miriam Kaba, who's a really powerful lifetime activist, has the quote, hope is a discipline. And I agree. It's something that we do because we refuse to allow the status quo to exist forever. And this is part of the destruction of that evil is hope, is the belief that it cannot and will not stay that way because we will be fighting against it. And I love Nick Cave has the quote that hope is a warrior emotion, that it's one that is when you understand what is sacred in your life, that you receive refuse to cede any ground on it. And that is how I feel about hope. It is not something that I look around and, you know, pluck little bits here and there from and go, well, now I can hope because someone else did this. It is something that I really try to fight for within myself, which is really hard because I'm a Jew and a pessimist. And that's not my natural way of being. And I think that's why I cling to it even more powerfully, is because it is earned. And I I don't know that my way of thinking is the best for everybody. But I will say that for me, it makes me feel much more empowered than trying to look around for hope, because often the world won't give it to you.

SPEAKER_02 40:00

I like that. And, you know, as you were talking, it reminds me, David Orr said hope is an action verb. And I hold on to that as well, that we take hope and we translate it into action. Because as you said, it's the hope that we live with on a day-to-day basis that allows us to continue to step into the fray and do our best to try to change the vision, change where we're going because it will change. I do believe that there are enough people working that we are going to be able to make that impact. But we have to keep doing it. Maggie, it has been such a delight to talk to you today. I strongly recommend Maggie's newest books, but also you should go check out Love in the Library as well. Thank you for your work. And I look forward to continuing to read all the many things you put out. I love your curious, wonderful brain.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Oh, thank you. That is so generous of you. And thank you for having me today.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

You've been listening to the Adventures in Learning podcast with your host, Dr. Diane. If you like what you're hearing, please subscribe, download, and let us know what you think, and please tell a friend. If you want the full show notes and the pictures, please go to drdianeadventures.com. We look forward to you joining us on our next adventure.