Ooh, hey, how are you doing today, Brad? I'm good.
Hey, you been absolutely fantastic. Man. I'll tell you what I love
the way that you put thoughts into people's heads. I call it planting,
because when you do a book like this, you know, ordinary people change
the world. I mean that that to me says it's time for us to
look out at ordinary people and stop basically idolizing those that are that are already
famous. That was the mission, and listen, I wish I could say
it was, you know, completely selfless. I did it for my kids.
Yes, I did it for my own selfish reasons. I wanted my
kids to have better heroes to look up to. I wanted to teach them
how to be good people. And you know, I tell them all the
time, if you want to be a hero, you got to help someone.
Having a billion dollar company doesn't make you a hero. You got to
think of someone beside yourself. So that's where we started the series. As
you know, you know, we've talked about it many a time. We
started with I'm Amelia Earhart and I am Abraham Lincoln. We did I am
Rosa Parks and I am Albert Einstein, my son loves sports. I said,
for get millionaire overpaid athletes. Here as I am Jackie Robinson and my
youngest son. You know who loves being creative and legos and drawing. I
did. I am Jim Henson, and I am Walt Disney. Our daughter
loves our dog. Here's I am Jane Goodall. And now we're thirty two
books in the series. Ten years into it. I can't even believe it's
been that long. But it's just been my mission as a parent to just
try and try and teach them how to be better people. And you invite
those to step into that part of your life. That's the thing that I
love about it is that you're not afraid to release what you're feeling and what
you were experiencing. Whereas other writers let me just shove it underneath my bed
or put it up in the attic. A nobody needs to feel this.
Listen. Era, My first book that I ever wrote, got twenty four
rejection letters. Oh man, there were only twenty publishers. I got twenty
four rejection letters, which means some people were writing me twice to make sure
I get the point. But I said, if they don't like that book,
I'm going to write another and if they don't like that book, and
to write another. And the one thing I know is if you want to
be happy in life, if you want to have your dream, you've got
to admit what you love and what you want. And that's a scary thing
to do, because if you admit what you love, you may not get
it, but it is the only answer. Do you see yourself as being
a historian or an archaeologist because you're digging up things that many of us have
long forgotten? Oh? I like that question, you know, I'm not
sure I see the difference between them that, you know. I like the
history, but I do like digging up the stuff you've never seen. I
mean, even in Ruth Bata Ginsburg, the newest book. Yes, I
love finding the story that no one's heard about her. That to me is
the fun, you know, is a story. You know, we all
think of her as a serious Supreme Court justice, right, And I guess
I could write a book about that, But we don't want any politics in
our book. You know. We put Amy Cony Barrett, and we put
you know, Sandrade O'Connor in this book. What I loved was the story
no one knows. What I loved was when when Ruth Beata Ginsburg was a
little girl growing up in Brooklyn, New York, all she wanted to do
was go on adventures and climb trees and play tag. And it's a time
when girls aren't supposed to do that. You can't do that, that's what
you know, you would think they would say back then. And it's her
mother who helps break the stereotype because she takes young Ruth to the local public
library and says to every Friday afternoon, Ruth, you can pick out five
books, and among the ones she loves most are the ones about real heroes,
Amilia Earhart, Harriet Tubman. And in that lesson, she gives her
daughter one of life's great lessons, which is there's absolutely nothing that a girl
can do. Wow. And you got to work with her too, the
daughter. Yeah. So you know when we did I Am Jing Goodall,
Jing Goodall helped us with the book, and we did I Am Dolly Pardon
or I Am Billy Jing King. We got help from them. Even John
Lewis was helpful with our Doctor King book. You know, we've been very
lucky, but this was the first hero who I knew the hero Ruth big
Ginsburg before we were writing about her, because her daughter was one of my
mentors in law school. And you know, it was incredible because I did
events with her, I knew her. You know, the family helped me
with the books. But you know, one of Justice Ginsburg's clerks was one
of my close friends. And when she got married, my friend asked she
needed two witnesses for the wedding certificate. And she asked Ruth bay Ginsburg to
sign be one signature and me to be the other. And I'll never forget
being in that back room. Ruth Banne Ginsburg's there, my friend's in her
white wedding dress, and Justice Ginsburg signs the wedding certificate. And I looked
at my friend and I was like, come on, do you really need
me now? Like you got it. It's official, and I think it's
going to be just fine. My one regret is I never got to tell
Ruth Beata Ginsburg that we were doing a book about her. Wow. Wow,
what do you think she would have said? I think, you know,
every time I spoke to her, she just was like she was just
a sweet little old lady. You know, thank you that's it. I
think she'll be. I think she was always surprised by how much people loved
her. When an icon she became, she was surprised by Kate McKinnon doing
her on Side Live. I think she just sort of said thank you.
Well, she was so down to earth, so ordinary like like it says
ordinary people, that is it, I mean, And that's what we forget.
You know, when Ruth Banmaginsberg was a little girl, instead of having
birthday parties, her mom used to take her to the local Jewish orphanage and
they would give away ice cream to the orphans. And what she learned there
from her mother was that's how you make change. You make change yourself.
And that's not a lesson she got from law school. It's a lesson she
got from her mom. And you know, she used the law to make
change. That's how she put good in the world. And that's all these
books are to us. It's our way of putting good into the world,
and we just use these books to do it. I love the way you
say that, you know, you're proving to the world that little girls can
go out and play. And right away I had a picture of little Hannah
who lives across the street from us, and her mother is out there with
her every day. I mean, she's climbing ladders, she's she's doing her
own thing. Little baby Hannah. I mean she's not maybe not even two
years old yet, but she's out there doing her own thing. And I
find so that's I want to transition this book to them so that she can
keep teaching that to her child. Well, that's what I love, you
know. You know, as I said, we're doing. This is now
our thirty second book in the series. When I when I first went to
the publisher and I said, they said, oh, it's so adorable.
You want to do I'm Amelia Earhart and I am Abraham Lincoln. Two books
for your kids. How nice and adorable? Yep. And I said,
no, no, no, you got it all wrong. I want to
do one hundred books. And I love the fact, I said, I
love the fact that people use our books now to build libraries of real heroes
for their kids, their grandkids, their nieces or nephews, and as you
just said, just for your neighbor, someone you see who needs this story
in their life. People donate them to their local schools. I love the
fact that people build these little libraries from the ordinary people change the world series
writing a story, how does it come to you? Are you sitting on
the sofa and it just comes to you? Are you walking through the public
What is it that that makes you go to, well, this is the
next book? You know. I always think the best stories are the ones
you can't shake. So you know, it's the one where like, I'll
dive down a couple of rabbit holes and I'll look at things, but I'm
like, that's interesting. But I stopped thinking about it in a day.
And you all know that story. You know, something you've been scrolling on
on Instagram or anywhere else that you're still thinking about three days later, four
days later, a week later, a month later. That's the story you
gotta tell. That's the one that you can't get out of your head.
And that's how I always find the next story. I just go with the
You know, Ruth bade Ginsburg with the number one most requested hero from kids
over the past few years, number one. I can't you know she died
obviously back in twenty twenty. You know, never thought for a second that
this was going to be you know, I thought she reached the kind of
peak of her popularity, but for whatever reason, she roaring back and we
listened to kids. So I started looking into a story and just said,
you know what, this is going to be a really fun one. And
when I heard those stories about her as a kid, I was like,
Oh, this is going to just be perfect. Do you ever worry about
being in a position of woke because this woke generation is just it's a it
feels out of control. Yeah, listen. I mean I think that the
word woke has been used to kind of you know, I understand what it
is, but I feel like what it's what it's been manipulated to kind of
fear and scare moon, you know, scaremonger. Like is it woke to
tell the true story about someone? I don't think so. I think you
got to tell it, you know, like we I take my books,
you know we did. We've I go from Fox News to CNN, I
go from Glenn Beck, I go to NPR okay with the same book,
and everyone's like, Yep, this is the story we should tell. So
I don't know, I'm just telling the right story. And I love the
fact that there's no politics in our books. I love the fact that you
know, we don't. We don't do that. What I don't like is
when you see people manipulating the facts to their own ends. That to me
is something bad. And you know what I see honestly, both sides do
that. Everyone plays and picks with their cherry pick from what they want.
You know, they say, they say, you know, don't don't tear
the statues down. We got to have all our history. And I don't
want people tearing down statues either. I think you've got to give context to
them. But I also see that same group saying, you know what,
let's pull these stories out of the library. Well, which is it?
You want to keep all the history? You just want to keep the ones
you want. That's a little bit of hypocrisy. But we turn our noses
up at right because we like our politics, and and to me, what
we have to do is instead of And the one thing I learned, you
know, and this is what I love about Ruth bitt at Ginsburg. You
know, is Ruth bitte Ginsburg's best friend on the Supreme Court? Was it
was Scalia? Really that was her best friend. Scalia was her best friend.
And why is Scalia and Ruth Bitte Ginsburg's why are they the two best
friends? Because they're the two smartest ones and despite the fact that they may
disagree politically, they can still be friends. And I know that may sound
like something trite or you know something, but that's an idea worth fighting for.
Man. And I think if we took a little bit of time and
stopped, you know, trying to pick fights and try to find you know,
I always say if you're if you listen to one news source for your
news, you're not an informed person. You got to listen to the other
side, whatever your whatever your side is, it'll frustrate you, it'll drive
you creation, it'll make you mad, but you will realize they're human beings
too. And that's to me. That, to me is the more important
part than you know, picking buzzwords and pointing fingers. Oh my god,
you just described me, because that's exactly what I do. I try to
go to every single thing because I don't want to be one sided. Now,
one of the things that I love about your books is that in Hollywood
is so so sick with this is that everything is based upon you. You
don't play that game, you you you tell the story it's not based upon
When I see those words in a Hollywood movie, my brother, you know,
based on a true story. My first thought is, this is a
lot of nonsense, right like it just is based upon means. We didn't
tell the full story. We told you the good parts we like, and
then we added other parts that you know, suit the story better. So
don't get your history from Hollywood movies. Hollywood has its own agenda, and
their agenda is to keep you happy and to keep you buying tickets. What
I love about our kids books, and these are books ages four or five
years old, about twelve years old, is even though they're for such little
kids, we show you all the failures. We show you all the elections
Abraham Lincoln lost and George Washington lost. We show you what you know Rosa
Parks went through that day when she faced that bus driver the first time,
because she faced him before and she didn't say anything the first time. We
show you what doctor King went through as a little kid, when he was
really angry and mad at the world, when someone told me how to sit
at the back of the bus. He lost to school. He's not perfect,
even mister Rogers, when he's a little boy being bullied loses his temper.
But everyone you look up to, whether it's Rosa Parks, Doctor King,
Mister Rogers, Ruth Beginsburg, anyone else, whoever you look up to,
your hero is have moments where they were scared and terrified and didn't think
they could go on, but they do. And that's not the flaw of
their story. That's the beauty of it. And I think you know to
me, don't again, don't getch your history from Hollywood movies. Rad.
How can somebody reach out to you to get your books, to find out
more about what you're doing, and to give you some love. No,
listen. You can find this obviously on all social media at Brad Meltzer,
Instagram, Twitter, everywhere else and Facebook, and you know you name the
platform, we're there. But if you go to Brad Meltzer dot com and
it's it's Meltzer is like seltzer that you drink, but with an M like
Mary, you can email me. You can tell me your suggestions for the
next hero. I always love hearing it. We listen to our readers and
listen to friends like you have been with us from the start of this series.
And I really do I think it's important to, you know, to
hear what people are looking for and what the what they're searching for. When
we looked around and saw how cruelly we were treating each other, that we
need more kindness in the world. That's where I am, mister Rogers as
a book came from. So, you know, communicating with us and emailing
us and telling us that stuff is vital to us. So thank you for
it. Oh man, you got to come back to this show anytime in
the future. You know, the door is always going to be open for
you. Well, I appreciate it, you know. But what I appreciate
is all the people who use these books to kind of do something good for
their kids and their nieces and their nephews. That's the beautiful part. I
love the people for ten years now. You know, it's very hard to
change the minds of adults, oh boy, but we have spent ten years
arming a generation of kids with lessons of kindness and perseverance and generosity and humility,
like these great American values that need to be brought back. And I'll
tell you what, I love that fight every single day. It's worth it.
Will you'd be brilliant today okay, sir, thank you, my friend