Speaker 1: Hello and good morning. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2: Good morning, I'm well, how are you? How about yourself?
Speaker 1: Absolutely fantastic. I'm so excited about this book because I'll
tell you what, I'm seeing a big shift and change
in our current culture in the way that more men
are spending time with their kids, even at a grocery store.
Speaker 2: Varian, I agree, and I really wanted to capture that
in book form. For sure.
Speaker 1: I get I'm so jealous of this book because my
father would have never done this. He would have never said, Hey,
my little man, come on, let's let me teach you
a lot of things about life.
Speaker 2: You know, I do think there's a shift with that did.
I think lots of dads before and all these generations
were kind of the strong, stoic type, and they felt
that the best way to just show what admits to
be a man, to be a role model was to
kind of carry on this burden and not to just
stop and explain things. And I find I wanted to
have a place where other and son could talk and
and be real with each other and not just kind
of do as I do and follow along that mentality.
Speaker 1: One of the things that you feature in this book.
I was just in a major league conversation about this.
I said, you never see kids with kites anymore, and
yet in your story there's a kite.
Speaker 2: I love kites. I live in Texas, in off the
off the area. There's a kite festival here every year.
It's amazing, great winds, and I thought, yeah, let's bring
a little old school back to it. Let's get away
from video games and great, right, they have their place,
but let's do something that's a little bit more active.
Speaker 1: One of the things that you cover inside this book.
And I wish that I could, you know, tap into
my own memory of when my sister was born. Did
I go through a jealous stage, because I mean Elijah
does go through a stage here that is you know,
I say, Okay, now there's a baby, it's not all
about me anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, I have a younger sister and I certainly
went through that. And I think Elijah, well, he's not
necessarily you're not mad at the baby, right, but he
does realize that there's less time available for everyone. Yeah,
less time available for him, and he misses that time
with his parents. He desperately wants it.
Speaker 1: So what led you to the name Elijah, because I mean,
I'm Christian man. Elijah and Elijah are two very powerful
names and people inside that big book.
Speaker 2: You know, I consider myself a Christian as well, and
I've always loved the name Elijah. Yeah, how it feels
is such a powerful name. And I thought this is
for this characters lots of changes, but I don't think
the name has ever changed. I think he's always been Elijah.
Speaker 1: Wow. So no, you prove one thing inside this book,
and I hope, I hope little readers understand this, that
everything doesn't go perfectly. And I like the way that
you're very transparent and honest about that.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, Elijah is trying to do the as you can.
But he makes mistakes. He makes a number of mistakes.
But I wanted to create a story where his father
encourages him to fite the mistakes, but he's going to
figure it out. I do think there's a place for correction,
but direction doesn't always have to be yelling or like, oh,
never mind, just sit in the corner and do your
own thing. Like no, you can figure this out, because
helping your family is a great thing. It's going to
make you feel great, it's going to be a good
thing for our entire family. I really wanted Elijah winning
bubbles to be encouraged to keep trying.
Speaker 1: Speaking of helping out, I mean, how about that reminder
of hey, let's have some fun here. It's not all
about work, dude, come on, have some fun with me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That was actually inspired a lot about from my
own life. I have two daughters and during the time
of COVID, we were all home together and they wanted
to play all the time. And I was like, well, sweets,
I have to work, and they didn't understand why wouldn't
I want to play. So we came up with this
this great agreement where we would all work hard in
the morning I would work at my job of running books.
They would either school, school work, do some tours, and
then in the afternoon we got to play hard. So
then we would get the legos out and blocks out,
the hot wheels out. Uh. And it was similar with
my father as well too, us all being together and
working as a family unit. Both those really helped to
drive the story.
Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Varian Johnson coming
up next. Hey, thanks for coming back to my conversation
with Varian Johnson. Creating side by side with Reggie Brown.
What was that like? Because I mean, I mean what
came first, the chicken or the eggs? Was it the
words or was it the pictures?
Speaker 2: The words came first. But my job as an author
is to write the best text I can, to hand
it over to the creative team, Reggie specifically, and then
to get out the way and let him create his maget.
And there's so many things that he does in this
story with elevating the text with his m in some places,
in me in places you don't even need words. The
images tell the stories themselves, right right?
Speaker 1: What is that like for you, us the author? When
when the images do.
Speaker 2: That, Oh, it is amazing. There were times. There was
a time as we're going through different drafts of the books,
and it went through multiple, multiple drafts, we had the
great spread of Elijah and his dad and Elijah handing
him this kite, and I had this long description of
the type, and I email my editor said, you know,
we don't need ENDIUSI at all, and we cut three
or four lines just like that because the images told
the story in a way better than any words could.
Speaker 1: Well, you do it in a way that I mean
I mean, these are lessons in life. They didn't give up,
they helped others, they cleaned up when they made a mess.
These are all lessons in life. I mean, being big
was hard work, and that is such an important part
of where we are in our life today. People, you know,
they find a mess and they walk away from it.
They don't clean it up. They walk away, But in
your book you say, no clean.
Speaker 2: Up, you know. So, I when I'm writing a book,
the first reference for me, and then I'm writing it
for my intended reader after that as I'm revising it.
And certainly this is the picture book is for our
youngest readers kindergarten through second third grade, four to eight,
let's say. But you know, there's lots of parents that
are going to be reading picture books over and over
and over again. I certainly did when I was had
younger children, and so I want some things in there
for the parents as well too. I'm hopeful that there's
there's ideas that messages the things that we can can
glean from the story, whether we're a child or an adult.
Speaker 1: It's so powerful to see, you know, Elijah and his
father working together, creating things together. I didn't see that
as a kid. So therefore when I see it inside
a book today, it's like, my god, it still lives.
Speaker 2: You know. Elijah looks up to his father so so much.
He wants to be just like them, and I think
then understands the responsibility and tries to live up to that.
You know. Also with tours, I thought it was really
important for like you said, to be helping out around
the house even though he's tired. He'd come over a
long day, but Marcael said, a long day too with
that baby at home. So he's helping change the diapers,
he's helping them make dinner. They're all picking in as
a family.
Speaker 1: One of the most powerful lines. And this is something
that I that I hope that you put on a
T shirt. At the end of the day, they all
smelled like sunshine. My god, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2: I you know, will pitch your books. You're often thinking
about what action or what emotion is evoking and words
that kind of evoked that. You know, I could have
said at the end of the day, all felt happy,
dr felt well, but like sunshine gives a slightly different
feeling to us. It's still all this fun, but you
attached to something you know, physical for lack of a
better word, sunshine, the sun out, happiness all day together
without using that specific word happy or fun or things
like that.
Speaker 1: When a thought like that falls onto your page, how
do you react as the receiver?
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's My goal is to try to
choose the best I can as an author, and I
love the books when they're out there, and I hope
that readers can can pick up certain things as well too,
some of these intentional choices that tried to make and
the text and some of these choices that regually made
in the art too. And what's great is that, especially
with the art, sometimes you don't see something the first
time you read it, but you read it over and
over the least little least little nuggings that you see
that just adds to the story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that definitely is in this book. Where can people
go to find out more about everything that you're doing
and what you're going to be doing?
Speaker 2: Well? Uh, you know, in the age of social media,
I'm all around. My website is Arrian Johnson dot com.
I'm pretty active on Twitter, I mean Twitter, on Instagram
at mister Barrian Johnson. I'm active on Facebook too, at
Barian Johnson. I think I have some other socials as well.
The great thing is Barrian Johnson is a very unusual name,
so if you do a search for very Justin, you're
probably gonna find it.
Speaker 1: I love it. Please come back to the show anytime
in the future. The door is always going to be
open for you.
Speaker 2: Oh, I will lest you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today? Okay, Varian says to you
Speaker 2: And say to your listeners, thank you so much.