Episode 41: Bookends

There's a member of the pediatric palliative care team we all love but rarely acknowledge: The children's books we share with families that help them cope and process the terrible situations they face. In this episode, Sarah and Dan talk with Joanna Rowland, author of The Memory Box, The Memory Book, and The Memory Tree; and Brennan Wood, author of A Kid's Book About Grief and Executive Director of Portland's Dougy Center (dougy.org).

Click on the links in the titles above to learn more and purchase their books!

Transcript

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Sarah Dabagh: 0:00

Dan. Hi. This is Sarah, and this is Dan, and we'd like to welcome you back to PediPal,

Daniel Eison: 0:06

a podcast about all things pediatric palliative care. The

Sarah Dabagh: 0:10

views in this podcast are ours alone and do not represent our respective organizations, and they do not constitute medical advice.

Daniel Eison: 0:17

As we turn the page on this new chapter of PediPal, we'd like to explore something that we haven't covered

Sarah Dabagh: 0:23

before. We talk a lot about the different team members on a pediatric palliative care team, and it occurred to us, as we were looking back at the work we've done until now that there's a team member that actually is very much a part of the room and very much a part of a lot of conversations that we have that we've never talked to, and that's the authors of the children's books that we so often use as tools and as helpers and as guides as we talk to families. And we thought it would be really great to bring a couple of those authors on to tell us a little bit about what it was like to become the authors of children's grief and processing books about the kinds of considerations they had to put into the writing of these books, and just to teach us about the side of that that as medical professionals, we just know nothing about. And so we're very excited to welcome on to our favorite children's authors.

Joanna Rowland: 1:19

Hi, my name is Joanna Rowland, I am a picture book author, and I write books to help children through difficult times. And I also teach elementary school in California. My first book I kind of wrote, almost by accident. I was at a family gathering talking about writing, and one of the relatives said she had wish there were positive books on divorce, and so I half jokingly said, All right, one, not knowing that would become my debut and always mom, forever, dad. And a week before that came out, the relative that was talking to me, it was for her granddaughter. That granddaughter's father had passed away. And I was just thinking, right before my book came out, oh, she doesn't need my book anymore. She needs a different type of book, and I hadn't thought about writing about grief. I was looking for books, you know, to send her, but none of them fit exactly what I was hoping the book would fit for her. A lot of them were on a loss for a grandparent, or they were very specific, like about a cancer journey. I just felt there was a hole in the market. And so that's kind of what led me to think about writing about the Memory Box. It took me two years to write it. During that time, I was a synchronized swimming coach, and one of my swimmers had gotten sick in the process of me starting to write this book, and unfortunately, she passed away. So I knew this grief book I was writing, it had to be relatable to not only a father, but a sister, a daughter, teammates that lost friends. The challenge was for me to figure out, how can I write it so the reader does not know who passed away, so can relate to anybody. After many edits and revisions in going to conferences, getting feedback, it just kind of came together and fell in the right hands with the publisher. It did at the time. It was called spark house.

Daniel Eison: 3:05

I'm glad you mentioned synchronized swimming, because I was going to ask, there's this one page in the book where the protagonist tries a new sport, and it was synchronized swimming. I was going to ask why that sport, if there was a reason you chose it. But I think the other thing that you mentioned that I find so important is this balance between specificity and generality, right? It feels like the book walks this line beautifully in a lot of ways, but I imagine that's challenging when you're writing to find that kind of middle voice between being too specific and too general.

Joanna Rowland: 3:38

Yes, and that's probably why it took two years of revisions. I had tried it in third person, different types of structures. The only way I could do what I wanted it to do was through first person, because then the reader didn't have to identify who it was, but you could still feel it was general enough, like the words needed to be general and personable, like she talks about places they've been without telling you what the places were, and then the illustrator gets to fill in that part of the story. And we were very fortunate with Thea Baker as the illustrator. Normally, when you sell a book, you wouldn't have contact with the illustrator as part of the process, but she put in some little secret nods, like the Synchronized Swimming float for the family, one of the families, it was in memory of that normally wouldn't happen, and I'm so thankful it did. It seems so strange

Sarah Dabagh: 4:29

to me, from a complete outsider's perspective, that the illustrator wouldn't be in direct communication, or even in direct back and forth. Tell me a little bit about what it was like to send your book out into the world, not knowing what the pictures would look like when I did

Joanna Rowland: 4:41

write the Memory Box. I did put an art note to say, I don't want the reader to know who passed away, but I wasn't in specific on what the character looked like if it was a boy or girl. And I guess the thought behind that is, when I send my words in, the illustrator hasn't looked at my words. You know? And it's kind of giving them that same respect of their art to create their own story with the words only little art notes I put in and then I snuck in that Synchro floor, because, you know, the worst could happen. They say, No, you mentioned

Sarah Dabagh: 5:14

going to conferences getting feedback in this two year process. How did the memory book evolve in that time, and what was the biggest sort of shift in how the book looked, whether or not it was directly information you got from conference or feedback you received from a person reading the book. When I

Joanna Rowland: 5:30

went to some conferences, when I was still figuring out the middle of the book, I had a art director. It was one of the members of this round table, and she had just planted the idea you could even do like a wordless spread. So it just helps me play with different textures or lack of words. I went to a big circumference, and I brought two versions, and it just confirmed it needed to be first person for me to do what I wanted it to do. So I think just getting feedback, because you hope your words make people feel so if you can tell there's something missing, people don't feel something and so that kind of helps, you know when you're on the right path. Were

Sarah Dabagh: 6:07

you surprised by the reception of this book? Because it is everywhere, and I, you know, recognize that I work in a very specific kind of everywhere, but it is really well utilized. Yeah,

Joanna Rowland: 6:20

I think I was surprised, because I'm a teacher by day. So, like, as much as I would love to say, Oh, I could write full time, you know, I, you know, I balanced motherhood and teaching and then writing. And I wasn't like a well known writer, you know, to begin with. I had just had a always, mom, forever, dad come out, like in a smaller press, you know, so I don't think people knew me. So to find out that it resonated with so many people, was touching and that it found its way to the market, I had hoped it had found its way to the hospital. Like I can't go necessarily go into any bookstore and see it, but to know child life specialists and counselors are using it, that's where I'm just in awe that it kind of found its place, because I'm not a good marketer.

Daniel Eison: 7:05

Have you gotten feedback about this, either from kids who have had it read to them or read it, or, I guess, from those counselors and child life specialists, I guess, since it's now in the place you hoped it would be like, what kind of the feedback have you gotten? So

Joanna Rowland: 7:21

I think the Memory Box came out in 2017 and in 2018 Saint Jude's someone that worked there reached out to me to let me know, for their day of remembrance, they were going to be reading that book and giving it to families. And I think she had said, like about 145 families from different parts of the world were attending. So to know that that you know was going to be used to help families, was really meaningful. On Amazon, I they say, Don't read reviews, but I do peak once in a while, and there are over 2000 reviews for it. So sometimes I'll read and people leave a message on how they used it and created a memory box with the children in their life. But as a teacher at the school prior to the one I work at now, I think I was teaching kindergarten or TK at the time, but a partner teacher had a student where his mom had passed away, and he never mentioned her. Maybe a month or two into the school year, the counselor used my book and he made a memory box, and then he took it for show and tell to his class, and he told his class for the first time about his mom. So to know a child that didn't know how to talk about the loss of his mom, that it helped him talk about his mom that was like, I would I cry thinking about it now. But so I think that, you know, to help kids communicate.

Sarah Dabagh: 8:40

I think books are such a safe place to find words to cry to Yes, for kids and adults. And so it makes a lot of sense that that's where your natural talents and passion ended up. And I think that's one of the beauties of a children's book, is it can be a family event, it can be a ceremony of remembrance event, or it can be a private event, reading a book like that.

Joanna Rowland: 9:00

And I think that's what I love about teaching, is I get paid to read picture books every day, and books are kind of like a safe place for kids to experience, maybe something they haven't experienced, but maybe one of their friends have experienced, or something they might have to encounter in the future to see. You know, it will be okay in different ways you can handle situation. So I love picture books as a gentle way to help children learn how to cope through life.

Sarah Dabagh: 9:26

So 2017 it is now. I had to do some math eight years later, believe it or not, if you could go back, is there anything now, either in the way your personal understanding of grief has changed, or the feedback you've gotten over the years? Is there anything you would change about the book if you were writing it today?

Joanna Rowland: 9:43

So the Memory Box book then had a journal called the memory book, a grief journal. Sometimes in a picture book, you're limited to how many words you can put on a page. So with the journal, I could talk about different seasons, because there were other aspects I would have loved. To include it in the book. So the journal, I got to do a little bit more of that. Then the memory tree, which is kind of like the companion that comes out next fall, is kind of celebrating your holiday without a loved one. I know a lot of people think of like a tree you actually plant as one way a memory tree can be about when Marisa had passed away, 2014 the first holiday, the first Christmas without her. Her family put up a Christmas tree, but they called it the Marisa tree, and we all got to bring an ornament to come over and share a special memory of her. And it was just such a beautiful tradition they had started. And so when my editor had mentioned the memory tree, I needed to first get Teresa's blessing, because I kind of felt like I got to be part of experiencing that. I wanted to honor them and make sure they'd be okay if I used that as inspiration for a story. And she was, when the book comes out, you're going to see her family and s and some friends in the back of the Marisa tree. It's kind of a Christmas story and a Greek book in one. It's just a way a child can use, like a Christmas tree and making ornaments or finding ornaments to share memories of the loved one that's no longer there in October, I think it comes out.

Sarah Dabagh: 11:19

My visual is taking the Memory Box and turning it inside out, right so all the memories are on display on the outside. That's my visual as you describe this book. Is there anything you learned about how children grieve that surprised you, either in that two year editing process, or in this after period where you're reading these

Joanna Rowland: 11:36

reviews children, they manifest it in different ways. And as a teacher, I've had quite a few different years where I've had a student that had lost a parent, and one even the mom came in and told me before that my student knew. So all day, I was thinking, Oh, his world is going to change. So I got to see how children respond in different ways. You know, you just want to be a safe place, be there if they need you. I mean, I think as it's such a personal thing for every student and every adult, how we grieve, it's just honoring the journey and planting seeds if they're ready to take them.

Sarah Dabagh: 12:15

Do you have any thoughts about how parents can approach the school can approach telling the teacher what's helpful to know to help support students who

Joanna Rowland: 12:24

are going through grief. It's very helpful if your child is going through whether it's a divorce or the loss of someone they love, or even moving, you know, some type of big transition, it's good just to inform the teachers, because when big changes happen for children, communication is the best thing, and then teachers can always help by, you know, giving resources to families too, and they know what's going on.

Brennan Wood: 12:52

Hi, I'm Brennan wood. I'm the executive director of Dougie center, the National grief Center for Children and Families, located in Portland, Oregon.

Daniel Eison: 13:01

I'd love to hear your story and how you came to be the head of the Dougie center.

Brennan Wood: 13:06

So I actually walked through the doors of the Dougie center for the first time in 1987 when I was 12 and my mom had died. She died three days after my 12th birthday, and I was fortunate enough to live in Portland, Oregon, and also that my dad had heard about Dougie center because I needed more support than I was getting. So I came to Dougie Center as a kid, and the Dougie Center provides peer support groups to grieving kids before and after a death. And I was very fortunate to go to Dougie center, because it was the single most helpful thing that happened in my life after my mother's death. When I was at Dougie center, I knew how important it was to me to continue to give back to Dougie center. I volunteered as a teenager for a lot of years. I left Portland for a lot of years, and then I moved back to Portland a little over 20 years ago and started working at the Dougie center 20 years ago, and became Executive Director almost 10 years ago now. Dougie center is this really beautiful, unique place. It was started in 1982 as the first peer grief support group for children and families in the nation and likely the world, and has really become the gold standard for childhood bereavement care and much of the nation and the world look to Dougie Center as a model of how to work with children and families who are grieving. And I just believe so much in what Dougie center does because of the impact it had on my life, and then also just being fortunate enough to work there and see the support that is provided, and hear from the, you know, 10s of 1000s of families that have been impacted by the support and resources that Dougie Center provides, I think what

Unknown: 14:59

I'm. Hearing is at the age of 12, you walked into the Dougie center, and in a way, you never left. That part of your grieving heart has always been entwined with the Dougie center. And that brings us to the reason we wanted to bring you on today is you were invited, based on your work with the Dougie center, to write a book about children's grief. Can you tell us a little bit about how that invitation came, how what it looked like is you were invited to write a book about children's grief, and I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about what that invitation looked

Brennan Wood: 15:26

like. Dougie center is this uniquely Portland nonprofit, but has this impact worldwide. And I would also say that a kids company, which started a kids book about this series of children's book is also, you know, uniquely Portland, but also now impacting nationwide and worldwide. And I know a few folks that worked with them on on different titles. They have a tremendous amount of titles, and they're, they're books that are, are for kids, about real subjects. The first book that they published was a kids book about racism. And the founder of the company, Jelani memory, I was connected to him through another author, and we started talking about what it would look like for me to write a kids book about grief in of course, in collaboration with Dougie center, as one of many titles that a kids book about does They're a tremendous company that are that are really providing wonderful resources to parents to have real conversations with kids about real things. And, you know, I really think that a kids company about and Doug Eison are very aligned in talking to kids and telling kids the truth, and that if kids are brave enough to ask the question, then adults should be brave enough to provide an answer. And so that's how it all came to be.

Unknown: 16:51

Something we like to talk about is how, you know, there are kids books that are written, and kids, really people of all ages, benefit, and many adults also benefit tremendously from kids books, especially when they're sensitive or an emotional. Sensitive or an emotional topic, and I'm wondering how you pictured your audience as you wrote this

Brennan Wood: 17:06

book. I wanted to write a book that I would have wanted to read when my mom died, and that would hopefully find itself in the hands of kids and likely with an adult reading it with them and hopefully talking to them about this subject, but where kids might not have access to additional resources, not every town in America has a children's bereavement program. Unfortunately, maybe someday we will. We're certainly working on it through the National Alliance for Children's grief, but I really wanted there to be a book that would support kids in how they were feeling when they maybe didn't have access to other resources. And although it is a kid's book, it's not your traditional it's not a picture book, it's not a story book, it's a designed book that's a little longer than your average kid book and really talks about the subject of grief, I therefore was also hopeful that it would impact families and kids, of course, but also maybe their teenage siblings and their adult, you know, parent or caretaker. And have actually found a lot of people from all ages reaching out and telling me that the book has been impactful. So that's awesome. Is

Daniel Eison: 18:20

there an age or stage that this book is really primed for? Is it targeted at a particular age group?

Brennan Wood: 18:27

Well, the book itself says that it's for ages six plus. And so I do think that's, you know, that's about right. Six plus is a good age group for this book. And I think you know, most of the kids books about are around that age, maybe five plus. Certainly, the intention behind all of the books in this series are for them to be read in companionship, like an adult and a kid to read together. Certainly older kids could probably read them on their own, but the hope is that it will spark conversation and lead to rich and lovely conversations for kids, and they're adults in their life too. Six

Unknown: 19:08

plus is such an age range, right? Because a six year old feels very different from a 12 year old, and a 12 year old feels very different from an adult all the way up. You know, when you're writing this book in picking language that you thought would work for a six year old and a 12 year old and an adult? An adult. What were the considerations that made that difficult? I would

Brennan Wood: 19:26

say one of the biggest considerations for me in writing this book is really balancing the need to want to highlight some of the more hopeful aspects that I could offer being someone whose parent died, you know, 37 years ago, at this point, with not wanting to bright side things too much right when, when you're a kid and you've had a parent or a sibling die, it is. It's a life changing, all consuming thing. And you know, I wanted to be sure to offer some hope. Know in the book, without trying to belittle the realness of what kids are going through, and also without trying to bright side that experience. Can you give

Unknown: 20:11

us an example of either the way that you worded something or the way you approached it?

Brennan Wood: 20:16

One example of that might be just offering a list of emotions that kids may be feeling, that's a really extensive list of emotions that actually includes things like relief, because I think we as a society tend to put grief into this very limited scope of what it is that it's just an emotion and the only emotion is sadness. When I believe grief is a yes, it is an emotional experience. It's also a cognitive experience, a behavioral experience. It can be a spiritual experience for people. And to say that grief is only one emotion and it's only sadness is just not true to who most people's experience of grief, and so giving kids the opportunity to see that there's this huge list of emotions and and, yes, some of those are very hard, very real, very deep, very raw emotions. And alongside that, you also can experience hope or pride or relief, or some of these things that you may not automatically associate with grief, but giving kids that opportunity, but not making it prescriptive, that they have to find what might be seen as a little bit more positive of an experience or emotion. What

Unknown: 21:33

was it like to sit down and think I'm about to write a book for the first time? Did you did you know where to start? Was there an inherent gut feeling about where to start based on your own grief work, or did that take some exploration? Well,

Brennan Wood: 21:45

the wonderful thing about a kid's book about the series is that it's really a very curated and structured process that the company actually goes through with their authors. And so we did some wonderful pre work, but then ultimately, we really sat together in a kind of a day long session to talk about the arc of the book and to talk about what we wanted to be sure to include, and ended up doing a lot of the writing of the book in that session, which was wonderful, and then had the opportunity to do quite a few rounds of editing and refining, but it's a different experience because it's thoughtfully put together in coordination with the company, and that's a different experience in a great way. I was

Unknown: 22:32

looking at the list of titles and getting ready for this interview, and I'm so curious, how does this book intersect with a kid's book about death, you know which one came first. Are they sort of designed to work together in some way? Could you talk a little bit about

Brennan Wood: 22:47

that? The kids book about death is a lot about what, what is dying? What is death? What it what does it mean to be alive? Therefore, what does it mean to die? And certainly touches a bit on feelings and grief, for sure. But the book that I wrote a kid's book about grief, is really about loss and grief, and doesn't really get into kind of what it means to die, and that's a kid's book about death. So I think they're actually wonderful companions to one another. To learn about what it means to die is different than learning about grief. And so I think they're both really important, and I think they're very complimentary of one another. And you can grieve without death. Absolutely you can. I believe at Dougie center, we believe grief is a natural, normal, healthy response to loss of any kind, and that grief is a human experience, and we grieve because we're human and because we're in relationship with one another in the world around us, and if we lose something, whatever that may be, we we can experience grief. And that's natural and normal and healthy. And so I think it's important that we talk about that. And certainly in a kid's book about grief, we talk about you can experience grief for all sorts of things, and the book is primarily centered around death, loss. You're going

Unknown: 24:04

to laugh at this. I have only written down one question this whole time, and that question is, why aren't there more Dougie centers? And that's sort of the same idea. Is, why aren't there more books about grief? It's a natural, intrinsic part of the human experience that kids experience at the same rate that adults experience. So why?

Brennan Wood: 24:21

Yes, in fact, one in 12 kids in the United States right now will experience the death of a parent or a sibling before they turn 18. That number more than doubles by the time youth turn the age of 25 so it really is very prevalent. And you are right, there is not enough resources. There's not enough support. We don't talk about it enough. And I think, you know, we live in a culture that is averse to death and certainly averse to talking about loss and grief, and I think that there is often a push to minimize. Is grief to you know, say people have to move on from grief, that it should happen in a in a very restricted time frame. And I think that, unfortunately, I actually think that is more harmful than helpful, because what I believe is that grief is a lifelong journey and experience, and that the more we actually try to fix it, cure it, push it away. The actual harder it can become for families, right when we experience it, go through it, continue to talk about and continue to maintain a relationship with people who die. I think it's actually healthier and creates a more lifelong journey that is healthier for kids and families. I

Daniel Eison: 25:44

recall a lot of conversation in the palliative care world when recently, in the DSM five, they redefined disordered grief as lasting longer than six months. And there was a lot of consternation about that in a similar way that you're speaking about. And I wonder if this has something to do with the, as you said, uniquely Portland nature of the Dougie center. And I'm curious. I've been thinking about that since you said it, and I am sure our friends at OHSU know exactly what you mean. But I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that, the culture from which this book springs, or the kind of ways that its home in the Pacific Northwest has influenced it.

Brennan Wood: 26:23

Portland tends to be a place that embraces unique ideas and nurtures those which is Dougie Center, which is a kids book about and I also think that it is a wonderful opportunity that we have to hopefully kind of light a different path forward when it comes to loss and grief when it comes to palliative care.

Daniel Eison: 26:47

Why do you think people find it so hard to talk about these things, either specifically with kids or just in general, like you mentioned, that our culture has a hard time with this stuff. What do you think is at the root of that? I

Brennan Wood: 26:58

think that it can be really hard to talk about loss and grief in general, and so then it can be even harder to talk with kids about loss and grief. Because if it's hard to talk with adults one another about it, it's I think it can be even harder to talk with kids. And I really do think some of that, especially when it comes to kids, comes from well intentioned places, right? You don't want to see kids sad and hurting, if you can, you want to help kids with that. And what happens? I believe, certainly, what happened to me is that I had a lot of well intentioned adults who wanted to take my pain away. They wanted me to feel better, and they wanted me to feel better quickly. But what they didn't realize, and what the gift of Dougie Center brought into my life, was that it actually helped me a lot more to feel the feelings and to allow for me to feel my grief and not try to fix it or take it away or invalidate those feelings that can be really hard. I think it's hard for us to allow people to sit in pain, right? We want to fix it and make it better, and unfortunately, that just isn't something we can do for one another. And so helping people in general, to just be with their grief is really the more helpful path forward, but that also can feel really hard in the moment. I'll say just one more thing about Dougie Center, which you can totally cut out, but I can't help but say it, which is Dougie Center, which, again, is based in Portland, relies on volunteers, and we, all of our groups, are run by a Dougie center staff person, which that person has at least a master's level education in the social service field. But the majority of the people who work with kids are trained volunteers, and we are a non profit. We don't charge our families at all. So we're very dependent on our community and our world to come together to support Dougie centers services, and so for those of your listeners that are in Portland, please consider volunteering at Dougie center or sending folks our way if they need support and resources. We also answer about 25,000 calls a year for various resources and support, and we have hundreds of free resources on our website, including we have a podcast called grief out loud and downloadable tip sheets and activities and books and all sorts of things. So if anyone is in need of support, or in a place where they want to give a little support to Dougie center, they can go to our website, which is Dougie, D O, U G, y.org, and

Unknown: 29:41

for our listeners, we have it that way. You know, as it was spelled out beautifully, here has a hyperlink in our show notes as well that you can go find.

Daniel Eison: 29:53

So Sarah, what are your thoughts about that

Sarah Dabagh: 29:55

episode? Yeah, it's been so long since we did one of these. It feels nice to be back in it. The thing. Something that I am hung up on, and I don't know that this is helpful or meaningful in any way, but I'm just still so stuck on the idea that the writing of the words and the illustrating of the story are such parallel processes and don't intertwine in the way that I imagined that they would. Because for me, the pictures are such an important part of the book. For many of our kids, who are young, who are not readers, who are listening audibly, but following along visually, it just seems like they're so important. And I just am so amazed with these authors, that the trust they put in their illustrators as they send these words out into into their hands. Yeah,

Daniel Eison: 30:40

it's especially funny, I think, for us working in palliative care, where we do a lot of work with words, and we do a lot of work collaboratively, but we're doing it like, at the same time in the same room, like handing it back and forth between me and my social worker, a nurse practitioner, and like, we're just, like, really tight and really close. It strikes me also as, like, scary almost, to think of saying what I want to say in a consult, and then just like sending it away for someone else to say the other parts. How do

Sarah Dabagh: 31:07

you typically use books as part of your conversations? Are you introducing them in order to introduce concepts? Are you doing gift giving? I don't. Our team doesn't have children's books. Oh, injuries. Oh, we should have talked about that earlier on. Yeah, our

Daniel Eison: 31:21

child life specialists use children's books, but it's something that turns out to be very separate from our palliative care work. Obviously, being in this episode has made me want to have these books to share them. We do recommend them. Sometimes we'll say, hey, we know this great book if you're looking for something. Do

Sarah Dabagh: 31:37

you think here's your CME question, based on the learning in this episode, you would change your practice?

Daniel Eison: 31:43

Yeah, I think I would having the book dare to give someone it's much more likely that they're gonna actually read it, as opposed to, like, going out and finding it. And I will say I did find some children's books really useful when I was talking to my own kids about my own transplant, and it was really useful in like, getting conversations started. I wasn't actually talking to them about death and dying, which was a good thing, but I did use certain other books to talk to my own kids at their appropriate level of preschool and elementary school, and it was very useful. So yes, I think I will change my practice.

Sarah Dabagh: 32:18

Okay, well, then I think I can give you 1.0 hours of ama approved CME time for this episode,

Daniel Eison: 32:25

just me, though, not any of our listeners. No, yeah, we

Sarah Dabagh: 32:31

don't have the money for that, and you know it.

Daniel Eison: 32:36

Thanks for listening. Our theme song was written by Kevin McLeod. You can follow us on blue sky, where our username is pdal dot bsky dot social. You can find the notes for this episode and all the others on our website. Pdal.org if you'd like to submit thoughts, objections or ideas for future episodes, please reach out through the email on our site. This has been PD pal, see you next

Sarah Dabagh: 32:58

month. We also need a title, bibliotherapy. That might

Unknown: 33:01

be a good one. Something about judging books by covers,

Sarah Dabagh: 33:06

by

Daniel Eison: 33:06

artwork. Yeah, because we talked about illustrations, cover to cover, undercover, turning the page, we got to save some of these really good ones that I'm coming up with for when we do more book episodes. Just

Sarah Dabagh: 33:20

a new chapter, new chapter, Star Wars. I think that's actually no it's a new hope. A New Hope. There's maybe we just name our episodes as Star Wars episodes.

Daniel Eison: 33:30

I love it. Pdal, The Empire Strikes Back.

Sarah Dabagh: 33:35

We're still recording this. So that could absolutely be a that could be a little gift to our listeners. Yeah,

Unknown: 33:40

everything about this is a gift to our listeners. You.