(upbeat music) - Welcome friends to this episode of the "Everyday Educator" podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Bailey, and I'm excited to spend some time with you today as we encourage one another, learn together, and ponder the delights and challenges that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime. Whether you're just considering this homeschooling possibility or deep into the daily delight of family learning, I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.

But don't forget, although this online community is awesome, you'll find even closer support in a local CC community. So go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today. Well, listeners, I'm excited to say that we are entering into the days of summer. I'm assuming that you are as glad as I am to see summertime coming and that maybe you and your children are thinking about things to do together and things to not do for a while.

I remember when I was little and it was time for school to be out, I loved almost nothing better than finding my favorite book and curling up, knowing that I could read for hours and hours with nobody to bother me. And because we have so many awesome books to offer families and individuals who love to read here at Classical Conversations, I wanted to talk to you today about our Copper Lodge Library.

And I have the perfect person to help me introduce you to some of our Copper Lodge Library editions. I have with me the lady who worked on the introductions and footnotes to all these Copper Lodge Library editions, Stephanie Meters. Stephanie, thanks for joining me today. - You're welcome, I'm glad to be here.

- I know that you love books at least as much as I do and maybe more. So I feel like you're the perfect person to talk to us about books. And I want to pick your brain and let my listeners, let all of our listeners in on maybe some of the behind the scenes production notes about the Copper Lodge Library.

Everybody likes to know what things are really like behind the scenes. So listeners, you get ready for a behind the scenes look at the Copper Lodge Library. Okay, Stephanie, this is what I want to ask you. Do you remember the first time you ever went to a library? - So I have a lot of early memories of going to the library, but I don't think I could possibly remember my first time because I was taken a lot.

As far as I can remember, I was taken a lot. So I don't actually know what my very first time was. - Yes, you, okay. Stephanie is my older daughter. And so I do remember the first time Stephanie ever went to the library and you went, I mean, you were in the baby carrier.

You went every week because I went every week. It was just my habit. And the earliest memory I have of you is setting your baby carrier on the big checkout, the circulation desk there in our little local library and the librarians would talk to you while I picked out books.

It was lovely. It was lovely. But you do have memories of going to the library when you were little. I know. What did you like about going to the library when you were little? - Man, I liked everything. It was a weekly, at least weekly occurrence. We would go, us and my little sister would go.

And then when we were homeschooling, another little boy, we would all go together. We would do story time at the library every week. And the librarians were so much fun and would read to us and they got really into the stories. And I remembered being treated like an adult in a way when I went to the library.

The librarians seemed to respect me very much as a person and as a reader and somebody who had her own real opinions about things. And I was never made to feel like a child or inferior. They very much recognized that love of books is for everybody at any age.

And so I sort of felt like an equal at the library. - Oh, that is so beautiful. I love that. And I have to say, I have watched you interact with children and books. And I feel like maybe you picked that up from the librarians. I feel like you treat all of the people equally when you're talking about books, that every person who loves a book is worthy of asking why.

And they have an opinion and their opinion is not greater or lesser dependent upon their age or even the kinds of books they like to read. I like that. So do you think that going to the library fostered a love of books and reading in you? What was it?

What do you think it was that made you love books? - Well, yeah, I don't know if I could say that it was the library 'cause it was just so many things. I mean, the library contributed to it, but just having stories be a part of our family contributed to it.

I loved disappearing into books. They were a way to experience different places in the world in different time periods. Just the power of stories and heroes and villains and helpers and watching characters change. As a kid, I loved all of those things. And as a person, life takes so much longer than a story.

And so I think it's interesting to get to see things come more full circle quicker when you're reading books. And so it lets you watch people grow and see what's possible to you in a faster format than to watch yourself actually grow up for literally 30 years. - Oh, my word, yes.

And you can see problems resolve and situations resolve. And so you can actually see things come to an end, like you were saying. That's a good insight that I don't know if I had ever really thought about. I remember loving, as you say, to disappear into stories. And even today, I was sitting here, I was reading something else that another CC person had written about reading in the summer and summer book clubs.

And I was thinking about some of the books that we have in our classical conversations curriculum that I remember reading as a child, as a teenager, when I didn't know they were on somebody's curriculum list. You know, it was just a book that I loved. And I was thinking about the book, "The Witch of Blackboard Pond" that I read as, I think probably like a sixth or seventh grader one summer.

And I remember putting myself into the place of Kit. And I can remember feeling what it must have felt like to move from a place like Barbados, where it was always warm and people seemed friendly and happy, and it was sunny, and you swam in the turquoise water. And then ending up in Puritan, New England, where everything was gray.

I mean, I just have this very vivid memory that life for Kit was azure and turquoise. And then all of a sudden it was steel gray and dull blue. And just, it was a very visceral memory that I have of stories. And I think that that was an early book that made me think about life from someone else's perspective.

You know, like what must she have felt like? What would that be like? And so, yeah, I think that's something that books can do. - You mentioned that you had lots of stories growing up. Some people grow up with lots of books in their home. And some people with almost no books in their home.

I remember as a child, when I would go to visit my friends' homes, if they didn't have books, I just thought that was so weird. Like, it'd be sort of like not having toys or not having furniture. What do you mean you have no clothes? You know, there are no books.

So where did you fall? Did you have, I know, there were lots of books at our house, but did you have books of your very own also? And what did you like about having your very own books? - Yes, so we did have lots of books and I did have books of my own.

I remember also that a lot of your books that you liked when you were a kid, you let me keep in my room. And so they weren't mine, but they got to be on my bookshelf because I didn't have very many books that were just mine yet. And so I got to grow my own library as I read different things and found books at the library that I liked and I wanted to own, or I found an author that I really liked and wanted to buy all of their books that were my very own.

And just having a shelf to turn to was a way to entertain myself at any time. It was a shelf of reference also, even if they weren't historical fiction, I still think that I would pull out the books because I wanted to find a particular passage or I remember this one character, or there were things that I would find in the books that I wanted to reference again, either as I was writing or as I was just thinking.

And stories and books of my own were always a source of inspiration too, because books that I loved would make me think of story ideas that I wanted to explore. - Hmm, yes, that's great. I love that, that you, that's really sweet. I know that I had some of my childhood books in your room because we would sit in your room and read and so it made sense to keep kids' books in kids' rooms.

I'm glad to know that it meant so much to you to have books in your room that you could arrange and that you could play with, that you could, like you said, read again or visit again or reference again. I think that's really fun. What did you like about choosing books for yourself?

- There's a lot of empowerment, I think, that comes with choosing your own books. When you're little, your parents kind of pick books for you, not out of control necessarily, just because you're little and you don't know what you might like. You don't know what's going to be interesting or what might inspire you.

So your parents start out, but then as you develop your own taste, I think of it kind of like developing your own taste in music. You develop what you like in books and the kinds of stories that you like to read and they shape you as a person and then maybe you as a person shape the kind of books that you're choosing.

It's a relationship, I think, and just part of growing up is having books of your own and choosing your own books, choosing what you like. And I remember finding some books that I would check out at the library that I didn't like, and that was interesting, figuring out what I just didn't think was very good and then trying to figure out why was it not good?

Did you not like the characters? Did it not feel well-written? And so that was an interesting exercise as well. - Yes, I remember. I remember choosing, like you said, choosing your books and Sarah's books for her when y'all were little, you know, 'cause there were favorites that I knew were good that I wanted to see if you liked, and then there were books that I knew were more classic, were more well-written.

I can remember when you started wanting to pick your own books, and that was a little bit hard for me, not because I thought you were gonna pick something that would harm you, but because I thought, I was afraid that you were gonna be disappointed because some of the books that were enticing to a young girl by their cover, I suspected would not be well-written.

And so I hated for you, I think I never wanted you to be disappointed about the book. I just never wanted books to be a disappointment to you. And so I think that's why it was hard for me to let you pick a book that I thought might not satisfy you.

But you know, you have to, as moms and dads, we have to let go. And I like what you said, that in choosing your own books, you felt empowered and it was freeing. And you did learn that the books you read might shape your taste, and then your taste could shape the books you chose.

So that's really cool. I like that. Well, today we promised to share with people some behind the scenes info on the Copper Lodge Library. And so I kind of would like everybody to know where Copper Lodge comes from. If you notice, if you guys have Copper Lodge Library books at home, you notice on the spine of the book, there is, it looks kind of like a castle or kind of like a house, and it's printed in copper.

And that is the Copper Lodge. And maybe you have wondered what's the big deal? What's the deal with that? Well, here's the kind of the background. As leaders in Seas to Sea thought about ways to help our families build a culture of learning at home, as a family, our minds naturally turned to books.

Most of us grew up loving books and loving to read and finding lots of value in that. Lots of us really loved reading with our families as little children. And a lot of us found it really sad when we encountered people that didn't have those same memories. It seemed especially sad that lots of families did not have a shared memory palace of stories and character quotes and poems that would unite them as a family around common experiences.

So we began to curate storybooks and our own editions of classic novels and poetry so that people could collect them. And have something to read together as a family. And when it came time to choose a brand or what we call an imprint of our own, we landed on the Copper Lodge because that is what the Bortons family home is nicknamed.

I don't know if you knew that or not. Lee and Robert live in a house that we all call the Copper Lodge. It's on a lake. There is a lot of copper in the hand railings of the stairs in Lee's house. And so Copper Lodge is what we landed on.

It became a way for Lee to share books and stories that were important to her and her family. It was sort of like sharing books from her own library with you guys. And so that's how the Copper Lodge was born. It was out of a desire to share beloved stories and beloved books and poems with all of you.

And I do think, Stephanie, that some of the dearest memories that our family has are around stories. Turns of phrases or pieces of dialogue that characters have or silly poems that we have made together. And for me, those are some of my dearest memories about stories. - Yeah, I would agree for sure.

I love, yeah, just thinking about different books that we read together and even kind of extending to movies just with dialogue. Yeah, and funny songs and poems and even playing charades based on books that we knew. I remember acting out "Anne of Green Gables" with Kathleen, my cousin, who had a green blanket.

And she was the one doing the charades and she draped the green blanket over her head and started crying. And I was like, "Oh, 'Anne of Green Gables,' that's when she dyes her hair green." And so just the way that common books can shape a lot of your life outside of just sitting and reading.

- I know, I love it, I love it. And that, having family memories around a common experience of reading is one of the dearest experiences. And it is something that your children will take with them when they leave home and it'll be a dear warm spot. All right, some more behind the scenes stuff.

Stephanie, you have worked on many of Copper Lodge Library offerings. What was the very first one? Do you remember what was the first Copper Lodge Library book you worked on? - So I think the very first one that I ever worked on was the "American Experience" storybook. But I actually don't know if that one or if "Tanglewood Tales" was published for it.

- Ah-ha, let's see. - So they were right there together. And the "American Experience" storybook took so much longer to put together because it is a collection of different stories that we hunted down. So that's the first one that I worked on. But I wanna say maybe the "Tanglewood Tales" that's used in the "Challenge B" exposition strand might be the first one that saw the light of day.

- You know what? I think you're right. I just, I was looking here on my shelf. I have both of them right here. And here is a cool thing. I think probably you did work on "Tanglewood Tales" first, but y'all, and I don't know if it's like this with the editions that come out now.

On my copy of "Tanglewood Tales," the Copper Lodge is not there. It is just CCMM as the imprint. But on my "American Experience" book, the Copper Lodge imprint is there on the spine. So I bet you're right that "Tanglewood" was first, but "Copper Lodge" library edition that has the first "Copper Lodge" might very well have been "American Experience." What did you like about working on, you said "American Experience" took a long time.

What took so long? Well, because it is a collection of different stories, we had to find all of the stories that we wanted to include. So the first thing we did is we tried to decide on a list of characters from American history. And so then once we had narrowed down all the characters to the number that we could have, then we had to find stories that were either about them, preferably we actually wanted them to be written by the characters.

We wanted, our number one goal was to find first person if possible, but they also needed to be in the public domain. So that mostly meant that they had to be pretty old and we wanted them to be at or below grade level reading because challenge B is not necessarily where we're trying to grow our biggest heart and literature muscles.

Right, right. So yeah, with all of those considerations, like narrowing down the characters, finding the stories and then having them preferably be first person below grade level. And we wanted them to be positive and uplifting as well. So it was just hard to find stories that fit all of those qualifications.

So it took a little while to assemble. Wow, and I guess that you probably, you probably rejected a lot of stories too. Yeah, some of them were just a little bit too long and it wasn't, there wasn't a good way to excerpt them and have it still be cohesive.

Gotcha. Like I said, this is one of the first things I ever worked on. So this was very early in my career as a employee of CCMM. And so I wasn't really heavily involved with the choosing. I was kind of watching that process for this book and just watching everybody take into consideration different things and weigh options.

And that was really a fun and helpful experience for me. Wow, so it sounds like you learned a lot about, well, about publishing, but about editing and what goes into creating an addition that people might really want to keep in their library forever. Yeah, I've learned a lot over this process.

I think that's really cool. So behind the scenes path would be choosing the characters for a book like "American Experience", choosing the characters and then choosing their stories. 'Cause I suppose you could have picked any number of stories about George Washington. Yeah, I like that. So the stories are designed to be of a readable length for families, but also I really liked that, that you chose positive and uplifting stories.

That's really cool. That's really cool. So here's a question that I have heard people ask before. Why is Classical Conversations reprinting books that already exist? Why do we need another edition of "The Secret Garden" or another edition of "Jane Eyre"? What is it? I guess what I really mean is what is it that make our Copper Lodge Library editions special?

Yeah, so we have created this line with challenge families in mind specifically. So just kind of at every turn, if we could do something to make the reading experience either more comfortable or more hospitable, we would do that. So the books have a good margin size so that students can take notes in the book.

They don't have to write like between the lines and in little corners. There's enough space they can have those conversations with the book. And they've got illustrations whenever possible to make them beautiful and give the imagination something to catch onto and just to break up the text a little bit.

'Cause I know for me as a student, if I have to read 10 pages of a book and then I do that and I realize that like one of the pages is an illustration, that's like, "Oh, it's a big space." It's like a little breather for the reader as well as being beautiful.

Yes, that's for sure. And then the forewords and the introductions are written to help the students understand some of the themes, some of the historical context and give some reading tips. And with the books that have forewords, we're getting to hear from different team members of CCMM just what they love about the books.

The forewords are the invitation to the reader to get them excited about reading this and maybe for the forward writer to share a little bit about how they found the book and what meant the most to them and what their experience was. And then we get into that introduction that tells a little bit more of the information side of things.

So that's the historical context and themes to note. And then throughout the book, we have the footnotes. So those are for historical context, again, to just get in there in those moments where you might not understand something, but then also for word pronunciation and definitions. - Oh my gosh, that is so good.

There are words that I had only ever read. And the first time, I can remember words like that. And the first time I would ever hear them spoken aloud, I didn't know what the word was. I didn't, like, there were words that was hard for me to connect with print and pronunciation.

- Yes, yes. I think that's the curse of being an early reader. You know the words, but you don't know how to say them. And so that was something that I was very conscious of when getting to do the annotations for these books is that if I saw a word that I remembered not knowing how to pronounce, I would sometimes slip in there and just, let's just put that in there in case anybody else is in that same boat.

- That is super hospitable. Yes, you have probably saved many a challenge student from being embarrassed in college. - Well, and sometimes I will double check words that I think I do now know how to say, but if I'm not 100% sure, I'll just look it up on Merriam-Webster.

And there have been a couple of times that I realized that I was mispronouncing a word. - Isn't that most embarrassing? And you try to recreate all the times you might've said it and who might've said that too. And were they secretly laughing or did they not know either?

So, oh, I love this. This is really good. So how is it, how do you go about creating the footnotes? 'Cause that seems to me to be something that you are excited about, you know, giving that historical context and given pronunciation and giving maybe even definitions of words that maybe are archaic or not, you know, what a typical eighth grader might go around using.

- Yes, yes. So one thing with these public domain readers, so we're publishing books that are in the public domain. So that means that we can do these kinds of annotations to them. Sometimes there are a lot of different public domain sources out there. So our lovely coworker, Leslie, actually does research to find the ones that will be the most clear, well-respected.

If there are changes in different editions, she'll kind of explore why. And then she's the one who does the research to find the public domain illustrations that we get to use as well. And during this process, sometimes she will find additions of the books that have some footnotes or some introductions or annotations that we can use.

And so we'll compile that. So I usually try to get a pretty solid base of different sources that have some annotations already that I can use as my sort of sources of truth as I'm building this challenge-focused one. So once we get that base, thanks to Leslie, then I will usually just read the book.

And if I can't quickly and confidently define a word, I will stop and usually footnote it. I do try to err on the side of having confidence in the readers because I don't wanna have too many footnotes and I also don't want to ever talk down to students. - Yes.

- That's a pet peeve of mine. So, I mean, if I still can't define a word at 30, like having read a lot of these books and doing the footnotes, then I will go ahead and say, "It's very possible that we might need a note here." So I'll do that.

And like I said before, if I'm confused about a pronunciation or if I'm wondering if I have it right, I will look it up and footnote it. If there's a proper noun that seems important, but I don't get the reference or if there's a quote used in the book, like it's quoting another source, I'll research that.

If something contextual confuses me, I will research. And so these are just the things that I note as I read. And if anything gives me pause or I think I'm missing something, I'll do some digging and then put a footnote usually. - Gotcha, gotcha. Now, let me ask you this.

What's the funniest footnote that you ever wrote? - Let's see. So some of them are a little bit, I don't know if I would go so far as to say snarky, but some of them are a little bit sarcastic. Not overly, but like sometimes those will be funny. I know there's one footnote in the "American Experience" storybook that it's a little footnote and it just says, "Wait for it." Because when I read the story, I was very confused because there's something that happens in the story that doesn't make any sense.

And you wonder if you've missed something and I went back and reread it. But no, it's a little bit of a mystery or a funniness in the story that comes out like on the next page. And so, because I was so confused and taken aback and thought I was missing something, I do have a little footnote in there that says, "Wait for it." So that nobody else has that experience.

They can know that they can just keep reading and it will make sense in a few words, 100 words. - That is so hilarious because I can imagine that there are many Challenge B students who are happy that you put that in there because they were probably thinking, "What in the world?

Am I supposed to get this?" So I think that's great. I love it that you are still able to channel your inner Challenge B student when you are writing these annotations. That is awesome. Okay, a moment of true confession. Did you read footnotes as a student? - No, absolutely not.

I didn't read the introductions as a student either. So it's kind of funny that I'm writing these things that I skipped as a kid. And because of that, if students also skip them, I don't know if I should say it, but it does not actually offend me. I get it.

- Yes. - But I do think if you get stuck on a word, knowing that you can just glance down and not have to go look it up is helpful. You don't have to get derailed. So students can ignore them as much as they want to, but if they get curious or they are confused, it's just a little helping hand down there to help them not get derailed.

- I love that, Stephanie. That is so honest. Yeah, 'cause I happen to know that that was not your, you did not, and I understand that. Like I never wanted to interrupt the flow of the story to go down to get a footnote. I just was like sucking in the story.

It was just like inhaling the story. And so I didn't want anything to interrupt me. But, and so I appreciate you acknowledging that there may be other readers who do the very same thing, but I love your, not exactly an admonishment to us, but a reminder that the footnotes are there if we ever get into a pickle.

That might have to be footnoted right there. If we ever get into a pickle and need help figuring something out, that the footnote is there to help us. Okay, so tell me. - One other thing. I will say that one of the reasons I hated reading introductions as a kid was that they had spoilers in it.

So I can tell you that, we have some other folks who are gonna be writing introductions for us as well, but if it was written by me, it's not gonna have spoilers. So you can read your introduction and not be worried about it. - Oh my goodness. I think you should make that a rule that nobody else has a spoiler too.

Oh, I never thought about that. And see, I'm probably telling myself, I frequently skip the introduction or I'll start reading the book before I read the introduction. And then a lot of times I do go back. Oh, wow. - I think sometimes it's helpful to maybe do it in like a sandwich fashion.

Like you read the book and then you read the introduction before like your second read, if you can reread it. Because that way you can be sure you don't have any spoilers for yourself. And you might know more of what is being spoken about in the introduction. You can make the connections.

And then when you do your second reading, having had it unpacked for you and pointed out in the introduction can help more. So I don't know. I mean, I'm a huge fan of reading books multiple times anyway. So I think that's something to consider as a possibility. - That is a lovely recommendation.

I actually like that very much. I like that you brought up the whole idea that we can and probably should read books more than one time. I mean, if you love them and they're your friend, why would you not revisit them? But we get a lot more from our second reading.

We glean new things. I love that idea. Okay, so that's what we should all start to do. If we don't want to give the time to the introduction on the first read, we should sandwich it between the first read and the second read. I like that. All right, so give me some ideas.

If I am sitting at home thinking, oh, I might like to build our own family library. I could start now and I could add a classic every year or multiple ones every year. What are some of the Copper Lodge Library classics that are already out? If I want to start building my library now and I trust CC and I think I'm going to start with Copper Lodge books, what's out there for me to choose from?

We have a really good spread right now and for a bunch of different ages, too. So we have the Uncle Paul readers, which are, I mean, they're really fun for every age, but they're aimed at scribblers. So that's sort of some science. We've got insects and natural science. And then the story of Rome, which is, as it sounds, the story of Rome in little short stories.

There's also the Echoes trilogy that Jennifer Courtney curated and worked on, which are fairy tales and old stories that are sort of cultural foundations, stories that a lot of cultures have in common or that we hope they'll be able to have in common if we all get these books and read them.

We've also got the American Experience Storybook and Tanglewood Tales that we've talked about. Some Challenge One literature. We have Walden or Life in the Woods by Thoreau. Some Emerson essays. We have the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington and The Scarlet Letter.

And then this year we have The Secret Garden, Pride and Prejudice, and English Epic Poetry. And I think those are my favorite that I've ever gotten to work on so far, especially English Epic Poetry. So I would highly recommend those. - What did you like about the English Epic Poetry so much?

And give me some samples of what's in there in case we're all sitting here thinking, what would an epic English poem be? - Right, so we've got the Canterbury Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and then Paradise Lost. And I think it was, well, it was my favorite, partly because I just love Paradise Lost.

That was one of my favorite things in college that I got to read. And I loved doing the annotations for that because I knew that Milton was brilliant going into this. But doing the research for the footnotes made me realize that he was brilliant on a level that I wasn't even aware was happening.

This man will do like two different allusions in one sentence, not even a sentence, like one line. And it also is still moving the poem forward and it has some etymology allusions in it. I mean, he just packs so much into so little and it's just brilliant. And I hope, I mean, I know the footnotes only scratched the surface of what he was really doing.

I tried, but I mean, he was way too brilliant. So yeah, that's just a super, super fun one, I think. Those are all good stories, like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Canterbury Tales, and Paradise Lost are all great stories on their own, but just getting a little tiny glimpse into how brilliant it actually is was so fun.

- You know, that I think would be incredibly helpful to a student. It'd be a wonderful thing to have in a personal home library but for a student, it really sounds to me like our Challenge students will benefit so much from having these Copper Lodge Library editions as they're reading it for discussion in community.

That's awesome. You make me want to go read Paradise Lost again, but only if I can have your footnotes while I do it. I think I wanna do that. Okay, so here's what I wanna ask you. There still are Copper Lodge editions coming out, right? We're not done. - Oh, yes, we're nowhere near finished.

More awesome things coming in the future. One of my favorite books is eventually gonna come, so that'll be great. - And we just have to wait to find out what that is. - Yes, it's gonna be a surprise. - Okay, well, I guess I'll get to have you back to talk about that one when it comes out.

- Yes. - All right, so here's my last question for you, my friend. What is your best tip for building a personal library? - I mean, just read, read a lot. Find out what you like. Go to your local library and see what you might want to have for your very own.

Used bookstores are great as well. This is not just one tip, I just keep going, but read widely. - That's okay. - Because you never know, you might find some genres that you weren't expecting to like that you do. - Yes. - So read widely as well. I mean, buy Copper Lodge Library.

We're doing some of the work for you. We're picking some books that we think are really good. - Yes, that, oh, I love that. You can trust us to get a good start on your classic home library. I love that. I like your tip, read widely, be adventurous. You're right, you don't know.

You might think that you hate poetry, but you might discover that you love it. And parents, as you're building a library at home, put lots of different kinds of books in there. Not just fairy tales, not just children's poetry, but nonfiction books. And biographies, you never know what will catch the imagination of your child or what will catch the imagination of you as you're reading aloud to your child.

So I love that. Be adventurous and try lots of different kinds of books. Stephanie, this has been great. I have loved picking your brain and finding out what is the process that you use as you guys are building the Copper Lodge Library series. I appreciate you sharing. It makes me want to go and get my copy of "American Experience" and find the "Wait for it" footnote.

We found it. The Abraham Lincoln story, I believe. Okay, oh, thank you for that. Okay. Okay, extra value added listeners. The "Wait for it" footnote is in the Abraham Lincoln story in "American Experience." Thank you, Stephanie, for sharing with us. I really appreciate talking to somebody who loves books as much as I do.

You're welcome. Thanks for having me. Listeners, I have something else to tell you about Everyday Educator. We are now on Instagram. So if you are an Instagram user, subscribe to our Instagram channel. Everyday Educator is on Instagram now. That would be one way that you could communicate with us.

I will see your post if you make a post on Everyday Educator on Instagram. If you have questions, if there are topics that you would love for us to explore together, that might be a great way for you to let me know. I'm always looking for a way for us to learn together, and I would love your input on that.

So check out, go to Instagram and find us, Everyday Educator on Instagram. And I will see you guys next week. (upbeat music)