twenty sixth two thousand and something significantly happened here in new jersey and it wasn't something pleasant and it impacted all of us some of us in more ways than others can sandy kind of evolve into something so positive that impacted children but before we do one of things that i'd like to add love to share quotes and love quotes and i came across this quote that says i have always believed and still believe that whatever goals whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of that's beautiful that is true yes and i thought that just so relates to what we were going  we're talking about so right now i have my my viewers in suspense are what are we going to be talking about we're going to talking about a wonderful book and you have seeing some copies right here that these two wonderful people created for children so let's start by asking you tell us about yourself how did they all of this come together ok first of all we're so thrilled to be here and it's so nice to meet you kevin and i we came up with this idea for our book because we're both teachers haven't retired i'm currently working and we came up with this idea door and lunch judy on the return from being offered two weeks after hurricane sandy our students inspired us in a subtle way they didn't realize that during lunch today we felt there was a new vibe going on in the cafeteria and there we wanted to capture the feeling the kids had volunteered during their time off would stop in storm shelters gathering supplies for needy people go in through traumas themselves and we had never felt this sense of community before in our school and we want to capture that so as a teacher as a mom as a wife  to bottle certain times up in feelings up and keep them forever and kevin i talked about that we came up with this idea for a book to try to capture that inspirational spirit and create the story of postal ghost in the story of the mystical mom that's awesome so you talk about that what was happening the school what were you seeing are feeling just expand on that for me during lunch today you're supposed to circulate and watch the kids and was were doing but at the same time there was a feeling that the kids were relieved they were smiling not there was they always smile but it's different like oh i'm back with my friends oh i went through this but here i'm back in my routine and we also observed a little it seems very organic like instantaneous we came up with the idea and it just hasn't solved into something of its own and when i say we broke the story i said kevin we really need to have something tangible to go along with it and that's where we have a very large hole when parade and the children mr hall who we met here they miss their trick or treat so for them to feel like ok it's ok missed trick or treat here we are back at school that was their treat their that was the reward for going through such a hard time the kids had really mention the fact that they missed trick or treat they they mention that they went through all this right and being back at school was i guess their treat and getting back into the routine i don't know if i'm saying that correctly but the hollowing is huge in our community we actually celebrate with a big parade it's like one of the biggest parades in the united states i don't know how it ranks and we trick or treat the day before how we so we can attend the parade and we were in the parade river where you trick or treat the day before so you can go to the parade and celebrate for two days with trick or treat so when the kids missed it i'm sure there was a loss however the big treat again i keep saying this was to say ok we survived this we got through this and people are still working on recovering from sandy holding four years later this i met a gentleman in at lowes or home depot last week and he's rebuilding his home so it hasn't gone away but we try to bring something positive from the snippet of situation that we were in and our students inspired us and we wanted them to be recognized for their hard work and on the back of the book and say that the book is dedicated to our students and the children wow that's so powerful that is powerful and you have a came up with that and i'm so glad he did  vocabulary there is some of that is a little bit challenging and basic so there is the way you use the book yes in the way we want as teachers we always want the students or the children to read with their parents yes and and with the structure of the book i always thought that would be great for your your book you to be sitting with your mommy or daddy and you start reading the book maybe you struggle little bit and then it gets easier so you the child can say well mommy i can read this book and then they they build confidence right at the end they might make it a little harder again so that the they ask permission because yes that they can say i'm good maybe i you can help me with this word that's awesome so you and i like that idea as to kind of integrating the learning yet not only a story that you tell yet there is a moral behind that salary but it's a way of actually teaching kids even can help to learn i read the book also so you know thank you i'm through and doing the look things that they need to do to be responsible adults and that was the whole thing with our story being teachers too we wanted to make sure that we've both read a lot of books that don't quite have the moral aspect anymore and we want to develop that family close at neighborhood closeness  diligently working on our next collaboration and in each book we're going to have a plant theme so this is host well ghost and the story the mystical moms and our next book is host the holiday helper and the story of the merry mistletoe it's so every book as we have all will have a little ghost in the book as a main character in a different way tell the moralistic story and there will be a plant to continue with the tales of the m create a theme based book about being a helper at christmas time with the next book and reinforcing helping other people in the community in this book little ghost gives tommy and susie gifts for being good wishes and great th now the children learn and then little ghost will become the holiday helper and also share the holiday spirit with them and they give back to the community and so well if we want to build on what we have ordinary stoush yes that's awesome so that we created here amongst the three of us but more so can i as the writers i have always wanted to be an author i was want to be a writer i've a language arts background so i went to school i have an english degree when i was at monmouth university earning eighty i also took the children's literature classes as well not knowing where i was going to try to take me and that's the thing about this project i didn't know where this project was going to take i happen to be teaching engineer it just taught me so much that i could do so many wonderful things in my life with these great opportunities that were presented to us being a mom being a full time teacher being a wife and now an author  the owner of a small publishing company logos publishing and having kevin as my friend and my partner in this could i couldn't done it without him and if that was out there we have that we know that you're there for probably seventeen years before you know in  the school and then just just all came together and i'm going to and i don't think i've ever mentions to kevin is that when you start something like this and you work with someone that you've never worked with before so closely i learned that i could trust people and we could trust each other and bill and build us together and meet wonderful people like yourself and just continue to meet people in the community yeah that is so powerful and i think that the key piece is the trust and being able to in the story we try to impart on our students in the readers over story is that you want to collaborate with other people and everybody has strengths and weaknesses and if you go around and you take the good parts that everybody can give you makes you much much stronger person about our book with the morals of being kind caring being a good brother sister sibling friend son or daughter and that doesn't happen overnight you have to learn those things you have to be taught how to be if you're  g you have be taught by role models and our book i believe is one key component of helping someone become the best person that they can be so by reading the book reinforcing being kind and caring and then someone else tells the the children about that or your teacher and aunts and uncles you're helping to build that person's character and reading again is part it should be part of every child's development they should go home and they should be excited about reading  thought about that and we might go that route eventually however we do author visits we do writing presentations and illustration process presentations at schools so we like to go and actually meet the children and share the book and share what you can use to develop your own writing skills your own illustration skills eventual we might go that route with the electronic i like to go meet the children and i just i just find that a i'm from old school so i like i like to tangible feel the book i do i like to turn the pages and as a child i'd like to turn the pages and see the patterns in the colors in the artwork that has developed and then you you get a sense of the feeling of something you really don't get quite from reading it online i agree with you know around one and then as lilian said we would go around and we actually have a powerpoint presentation on our development of stories and how children can then take our story and learn to integrate so they can tell their own story we tried to make we did make the book very fordable as well so we wanted to get it into the hands of as many students as they could as many children as possible but i'm not saying that the electronic is the question but we also have a great website as well little goes publishing dot com and the kids can go there and they can see the characters they can see a little bit how we develop the story also what that would be the electronic aspect at this time we also have a map of the world where the little ghost has travelled or a we all have quite a few in the community would accept the so much and in the children when we go around to the these schools i mean the excitement in the in the passion of the children's eyes to read the story and then ask questions on how the they also can become an author or an illustrator is loved watching the children get excited wow wow do you see yourself writing for our age groups are just focusing here at this point for me personally i this is my my age group kindergarten probably to sixth grade i don't see going beyond that i've been influenced by many other great writers and authors and i think i found my mind it ok that's good to know what i wrote engineering  trade journals before th wow wow so for the parents who are watching what are some of any any tips for them in terms of how to better engage their kids is reading your just mentioned about reading but that's just that it's  something that's kind of falling off the radar yet because especially now with you know technology and all of the social media and everything and the thoughts i read me i did interact with their children and train cars to reading course you know if you're a parent see read a magazine or a newspaper or and have an appreciation for books or going to be around the house or pick your child if you can't afford books take your child to the library it's free there's a wonderful world and the child can develop and go anywhere in the world they want to become anything they want within a book to write that's true there's a difference in venture and some children don't have that opportunity so we try to encourage them but yes maybe actually we don way yeah you just do it and i think that right there also shows kids that we are truly part of the community and we're trying to be role models and help in some way that's awesome that's really awesome so some connect and schedule sometimes where you have to actually make a lot that's one of our favorite things to do is to go meet with other teachers and with the children so we are on the internet we have our website little post publishing as i said earlier and they can reach out to us via e mail that's a book let's get the mugs made and if you look at your i look at it every morning on my desk i said how we create this together we can continue to move forward with this and when you have a vision when you keep seeing something over and over again that's positive positive things this i thought is so cool thank you dop she is near and dear to my heart for a personal reason and when we decided to put the adoption certificate i said this is like the icing on the cake this is going to be the for me this is like ok this is how we're little ghost actually helps to teach lessons and so if the child is good little goes will appear at least a little surprise for the child before halloween but if the child is not quite layers when you really go over to a number of times you'll see that there's much more you can get out of it and we said it would be anywhere from preschool up to the sixth grade it's very well technically you could also take that into a college class doesn't mean it can't be actually a lot of times it's harder to write a children's book than it is to write an adult fiction because every word you choose has to have a meaning and stand by itself right exactly i totally agree with that but with going back to your book with regarding the doctor since both of us when when i had staff and they were moving on their promoted or they were moving on to another job i would give them that book