Folk Literature, Anxiety, and Empowering Friendships -- Exploring Kaya of the Ocean with Gloria L. Huang

Episode Overview:

One of the things I love about the work I do is discovering new authors to share with you. This week, we are joined by debut author Gloria L. Huang to discuss her novel Kaya of the Ocean. Set against the scenic backdrop of Hawaii, Gloria's book intertwines themes of folk literature, family challenges, and the struggles of finding self-acceptance while battling anxiety. And she does it with humor and grace, giving us a book that is full of adventure and humor, as well as nuanced characters struggling with anxiety, self-acceptance, and the worries of middle graders.

Chapter Highlights:

0:01:03: Kaya of the Ocean: Gloria introduces her middle grade novel. We explore its rich themes, including anxiety, family expectations, and folk literature. She shares her inspiration drawn from personal experiences and the effects of the pandemic on children, emphasizing the importance of self-acceptance and normalizing conversations about anxiety in middle-grade literature.

0:08:54: Kaya's Mythological Inspirations and that gorgeous Hawaii Setting 

Go behind the scenes of Gloria's creative process as we discuss the parallels between Kaya's story and the history of the Chinese water goddess, Mazu. Gloria highlights the significance of friendships over romantic interests and explains why Hawaii was the perfect setting to reflect Kaya's personal evolution and fears.

(0:19:42) - Literary Inspirations and Hope in Writing 

Gloria shares her literary influences, from childhood favorites like Avi's The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle to contemporary authors such as Tae Keller (When You Trap a Tiger). She offers advice to aspiring writers, emphasizing perseverance, and hints at exciting future projects.

(0:26:22) - Family Support in Publishing

Gloria reflects on the invaluable support from her daughter, who served as a critical early reader. 

Resources and Links:

Order Kaya of the Ocean

Follow Gloria L. Huang on Instagram @lailaswrites

Visit Gloria's webpage.

Transcript

00:02 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So welcome to the Adventures in Learning podcast. I have a real treat for you today. There is a brand new book coming into the world. It's a debut novel and it's one of the best things I've read this winter. And it was such a great book in terms of looking at folk literature and anxiety and family struggles and all the pressures that kids are feeling these days. And it took place in one of my favorite places, hawaii, and you are just going to want to escape with this book this winter. So I am so excited to welcome Gloria Huang, the author of this beautiful book, and it's Kaya of the Ocean. Welcome to the show. 

00:47 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
Thank you so much. It's so good to be here. Thanks for having me. 

00:50 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So this is your first novel, is that correct? 

00:53 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
It is, it is and I'm really excited to have it. I feel like I hear this expression where people say it's the book of my heart, and that's kind of how I feel about this book, so I'm glad this is the first one out there. 

01:03 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Well, let's talk a little bit about the Book of your Heart, because there were so many amazing themes to unpack within it. Can you give a brief synopsis and then talk a little bit about what led you to write this particular book? 

01:18 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
For sure. So it is a contemporary middle grade novel. It is a contemporary middle grade novel and it focuses on a young girl named Kaya who is growing up in Hawaii and she's Chinese American and she struggles with anxiety and a fear of the water which she can't really seem to explain to herself and obviously makes life difficult being in Hawaii being surrounded by water. But she eventually realizes that she is descended secretly from the Chinese goddess Mazu, who's the Chinese water goddess, and her discovery of that and her having to learn how to control these powers and her struggles with anxiety kind of dovetail throughout the novel. So yeah, it brings in Chinese mythological fantasy. It has friendship and family and the struggle with anxiety and just learning to kind of accept who you are and everything that you are. 

02:16 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Wonderful, and what prompted you to write this particular book. 

02:21 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
So that's a really good question. 

02:23
I would say there was a couple things, but the main driving force was that I started writing it kind of when the world was just emerging from the pandemic. 

02:31
But there were still a lot of long-term effects of it that I could see. And one specific effect was in some children very close to me. I could see them struggling with anxiety for the first time and that was really hard to see, especially because I struggled with anxiety as a child and I still do now to a certain extent and I could remember how terrifying it is, especially the first time, when you're a child and it's new and you don't know what's happening and you're just so afraid that something is deeply wrong with you. So I wanted to write this book almost as a message to those kids and maybe to my former self, that all parts of you, even the parts that you might not love as much or you might see as a weakness, are important parts of making up the beautiful, complex, amazing person you are, and kind of learning to accept all those parts of yourself is like the true superpower. So that was, that was the inspiration. 

03:29 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Well, and I felt like you captured that beautifully. Thank you so much. You know anxiety. Really I think you hit it. I was trying to, I was thinking about it and it feels like there are a lot more middle grade novels that are touching on anxiety today than even 10 years ago, and generally authors reflect what's going on in the world around us and I had been sort of thinking what was it that led to this uptick? And I think you've got it. I do think it's coming out of the pandemic. I mean, I think anxiety has always been with us. We didn't necessarily have the names for it. My own daughter necessarily have the names for it. My own daughter who's 25, struggled with anxiety, but we didn't necessarily have the tools and the things that you know, and I found myself identifying with Kaya as I was reading it, going oh, I so hope my daughter didn't feel like this as she was growing up. 

04:20 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
No, exactly, and you know, I think you make such a good point that there is more out there talking about anxiety, and I think that that's a really powerful thing too, because one thing that I try to address in Kaya is for a lot of the book, especially at the beginning, she's like trying to hide it because she's afraid and she's embarrassed and she, you know, scratches herself, which is something that I did and she really doesn't want people to know. She doesn't want her friends to know. She kind of tries to tell her parents, but her parents don't know how to handle it at first and so it all goes inside and I'm a big believer that I think that that makes things harder, that if you talk about things and bring it into the light and normalize it, it can only be good. So I think you're exactly right. There is more out there and I'm so glad that there is a conversation. 

05:05 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And I love the fact and this is a no spoilers thing, but I do love the fact that Kaya works through her anxiety without her superpowers being the reason that she's able to get the help that she needs. 

05:18
I think that makes it really relatable for your 10-year-old, 11-year-old, 12-year year old reader who may not have the superpowers of being descended from the water goddess, and I thought that was really powerful, that you, you gave her those powers but at the same time, it wasn't the powers that freed her and she wasn't freed from anxiety, but that lessened it and made it easier. 

05:40 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
Thank you so much for saying that. I'm so glad you noticed that. That was really important to me, that I wanted to have like a connection between kind of this discovery of these powers she couldn't control and her struggles, kind of accepting this part of her, this anxiety. But you're right, I absolutely didn't want it to be. And then it was cured and she was all fine, because A it doesn't, life doesn't work that way. But B you're right, you know, most people are not descended from goddesses. And I wanted it to be kind of a side discovery in that, even though it's something that will continue in the future, kind of a discovery she makes about herself in one way, about her powers, but another discovery about herself and her accepting herself. 

06:19 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I think that's really important. You know I was reading something about some of the other short stories that you've written. That's really important. You know I was reading something about some of the other short stories that you've written and you had said a quote that really resonated with me about how water seems to find its way into being a main character or a side character in the things you write. I'd love to unpack that a little bit. Tell us more about your fascination with water and why water plays the role it plays in this book. 

06:45 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
Oh, I, I love that question and I love the observation because it's so true. 

06:49
I with, honestly, without even realizing it, water comes up in most of my stories as a almost as a, as a character, and I think it's because I was, I was giving this some thought the other day and I think it's because water, and especially the ocean, there's so much mystery to it and so much power and so much unknown, but it's also a source of soothing and calm for so many people. 

07:16
So, kaya was actually the idea, for it actually came to me when I was actually on a beach and it was nighttime and I was staring out at the ocean and you, you could barely see it, kind of under the moonlight, and it was rolling in, but I was just so in awe of all this like power and unknown, but also the fact that it was like always there and always kind of steady and constant, and so there is so much that I want to bring to that. But but when I was standing there and I was thinking kind of like about the ocean and water, and then I remembered Mazu and then I thought about these struggles and anxiety and it all came together that way, but I, you're right, the ocean. I think the ocean is beautiful and I think it's such a great metaphor, so it always works its way in somehow. 

07:57 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And Mazu? Did you grow up knowing about Mazu, the water goddess, or did you have to do research? 

08:03 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
A little of both. So I did hear about Mazu, first heard about Mazu from my dad, who kind of like I think I don't remember how it first came about, but I do remember him telling me about the story and about the legend and about the fact that she was very much still kind of revered, especially in a lot of coastal towns, I think. At the time I think I was asking about her name and whether she's named you know, other people named their kids after her and he was like no, they would never do that, that would be disrespectful. And I think that worked its way into one of the one of the versions of Kaya when I was writing it. But then when I so, I wanted. So basically, mazu is this amazing, interesting, unique, strong figure that I think exists in a space that it's not super common for, like these strong female figures to exist. So I was already very intrigued by her. 

08:54
And then I delved into the history a little bit, especially while I started writing, and honestly I'm not making this up, honestly, I'm not making this up A lot of the things that I found about Mazu's like kind of origins I found out after I wrote Kaya, but they fit so perfectly Like she had two sidekicks that she initially, like you know, fought with and then they became her best friends and she was a voracious reader when she was a child and couldn't swim right away but learned to swim later and all that stuff actually like ended up dovetailing really well with the story I was writing. And then, of course, once I read it, I kind of tried to make the parallels more clear. But I really wanted to bring this powerful Chinese water goddess into modern times, into like this fictionalized account of what would it be like if someone was descended from her but was struggling with something like anxiety in the modern age. 

09:44 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So it was well, and I loved the way you were able to sort of connect history throughout as well, because there are these really interesting little vignettes that take you across the ages, from the 1600s to the present, and sort of form that connection to Kaya yeah, I those were really um, really um enjoyable to write One of them. 

10:05 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
I think there were three flashbacks. One of them actually has a very fictionalized account taken from kind of part of my family history. So that was kind of a way for me to like work in my cultural background and my family background into it. And then the other ones I think I did some research for and wanted to you know, wanted to write a fictionalized account of it. But one of the flashbacks I think was really really it was actually much longer than I ended up having to whittle it down because it was taking too much attention away from the plot but the story of Yujin, who is her ancestor, her goddess lineage, who dresses up as her own brother and steals away from China to San Francisco to work in the gold rush to make money for her family. There was so much kind of like rich story behind it and it was really fun to just like dip into it for a little bit. 

10:53 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Well, it almost sounds like you Jin could command her own story. 

10:56 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
Yes, yes for sure. I definitely had to hold myself back from like doing too much in that flashback. 

11:03 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Well, and the other thing I think that you did so well and you teachers or parents, are listening and thinking about books or librarians that they want to put in front of kids. You really capture the relationships, the friend relationships, the insecurities, the jealousies, but also the I've got your back, no matter what, and that's hard to do. Where was your inspiration for these 13, 14, 15 year olds? 

11:33 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
That's a really good question. So I think when I was writing it I really wanted to make sure that Kaya had these strong friendships that would be strained at some point but that kind of would carry her through, and I think part of it was that. I know that at that age it's a really it's like an incredible age. There's so much excitement and so much change, but also things that are scary, such as, you know, encountering anxiety for the first time. But it's also a time where I think kids are starting to turn a little more to friends as sources of comfort and sources of information and away from their family, which is, you know, before it was all about the parents. 

12:12
Now it's a lot about the friends and I wanted to give Kaya the kind of strong friendships that I think could really support her. And so her friendships with Ayolana and Naomi I see, at this point in her life it's almost like they are kind of the loves of her life and it's kind of. It's funny because in the earlier versions of Kaya she had the friendship with the boy Tayo and in the early versions it was much more crush based. And I actually pulled back from that because when I, you know, in the couple of iterations I went through, I was like I don't want this to take away from like the true relationship that I see really mattering to Kaya right now, which is her friendships with her best friend. So I wanted to have that there. I wanted to show its weaknesses, show its strengths and just, but it's part of what kind of gives Kaya support and helps her eventually learn to kind of deal with her anxiety differently. 

12:56 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And I think that with Kaya you sort of left it open for what might happen down the road or might not happen, because again at that age, who knows Exactly? 

13:06 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
exactly, there's a. It's more like I reduced it to hopefully, more like the promise of love or the potential for future love, rather than anything you know too crush based. 

13:16 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Well, and it felt more like these were two lifelong friends who, yeah, there was the potential for something, but this wasn't the time. Exactly, exactly. She had, she had a lot going on. She had a lot going on that Christmas. So, hawaii what inspired you to use Hawaii as the setting? 

13:36 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
Yeah, so a couple of things I would say. Like you, I love Hawaii. I'm a big fan of it. It's a beautiful place, kind of topographically, geographically it's just got natural beauty, but also the people are so warm there and it's a little bit of my happy place. Like a lot of Kaya was actually written there. I drew so much inspiration from it and I kind of wanted to honor it and thank it by having it be the setting. But I also thought it would be a good place to set this story where there's a girl who's got this anxiety and this fear of the water to be to have her surrounded by water. I thought that was like exactly kind of the setting she needed to be in to kind of address all these things, especially when it turns out that she's descended from a water goddess. 

14:24 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So before we go to a break, I'm wondering would you like to read an excerpt from Kaya? 

14:29 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
Oh, that would be great. I have some copies here I could try. 

14:34 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I'll pause it while you find it and then we'll come back. So before we go to break, I was thinking it would be really fun for the audience to get to hear a little bit of Kaya in your words. Would you mind reading an excerpt? 

14:47 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
No, I'd be happy to. So this is actually a scene where Kaya gets into an argument with her cousin, anne, who's visiting, and they've kind of had some trouble already and they've had some friction, but it kind of all comes to a head at the side of the water and she's been trying've had some friction, but it kind of all comes to a head at the side of the water and she's been trying to hide her powers, which aren't always under her control, and her friends are there and there's a lot of there's a lot of jealousy and a lot of resentment, and so this is that's the setup for the scene. Anne sighed noisily. I don't know why you're both so scared of her. You don't need to act. All sorry, she's the one being weird. 

15:28
I whirled around and advanced on Anne again. I could feel my anger boiling over, erupting like a volcano. Why did you even come here? Go back home to Manhattan where everything's so much cooler. I spun on my heel to storm away. Before Anne could respond, naomi and Ayalana chased after me. We had only gone 20 feet or so from the water when alarmed yells and cries startled us from our exodus. I looked over to see Tayo and his friends waving and gesturing wildly at the water Spinning around. I was horrified to see a giant wave, far larger than any of the medium-sized waves I'd seen so far, crash over Anne and swallow her up. For a moment I stood paralyzed in disbelief. The water receded, leaving nothing but glistening sand behind. It felt almost like a nature-based magic show. First you see her, now you don't. 

16:17 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Wow, that's a good section and, seriously, folks, you have got to go out and get this book. It is going to absolutely warm your winter. When we come back, we're going to learn a little bit more about Gloria and her adventures in learning, so we'll take a break and we'll come right back. All right, so welcome back to the Adventures in Learning podcast, gloria. I always love to ask people about their own adventures in learning. How did you get to the point where you're writing middle grade novels? So sort of what led up to that? 

16:50 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
Yeah, I would say that I am one of those people and I'm always a little hesitant to say it because I'm like, is it obnoxious? But I'm one of those people who loved writing ever since they were a child. I remember I would, you know, I would write all the time. I would write stories and even books, quote unquote and I would want to be a writer. That was always my kind of goal. I also loved reading and I definitely feel like a lot of my most memorable moments with books at the beginning, you know, obviously I'm sure there were board books and the early ones, but were middle grade novels, so that always had a really special place in my heart. 

17:26
I studied English literature and sorry, can I say that again, Of course, Thanks. 

17:31
I studied English literature at college and I took a lot of writing courses there. And then I kind of focused on writing literary fiction, short stories, for a while and having those published in literary magazines, and that was a really great experience, a really great kind of introduction to the publishing world in a different form. And then a couple of years ago I started writing novels, especially kidlit novels, and then that's when I reached out, queried for an agent, a lot of querying and I landed my first agent and we actually went out with a young adult novel which wasn't picked up and she and I parted amicably. And then I found my current agents and they are amazing Laura Cameron and Amanda Roscoe from Transatlantic, and they're brilliant and they were the ones who helped me sell Kaya. So that's kind of that was my journey to this point, but I'm so. I am so honored and happy to be writing in middle grade genre, since it was kind of it was the genre I first fell in love with when I was a kid. 

18:31 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And I think I saw that you know, like all of us, you've done all kinds of different jobs in route to becoming a writer. What have been some of the most interesting things you've done? 

18:42 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
Yeah, that's a good point I've done. I guess it's funny because everything I've done has been writing-based, though not always fiction writing-based. So I did practice as a lawyer previously, so obviously a lot of specific writing in that. And then I was in you know, kind of legal tech and also doing a lot of writing and kind of the product marketing world. So I really, for me, it was always, whatever I did, my favorite part of it was always writing, whether it was fiction or nonfiction. It's just like the love of words and constructing, you know, anything to communicate was always something I enjoyed. 

19:21 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Did you save any of those early books that you wrote when you were a kid? 

19:25 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
You know I did not, and I vastly between being sad about that and sometimes thinking about how dramatic I was as a kid and then being relieved Because I think that there was a lot of I'm sure there was a lot of dramatic paths before I found a voice that worked. 

19:41 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And do you remember what books inspired you when you were younger? 

19:45 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
I do, I do, I would say three. There were three books that even now I like will recommend to people and I really loved. One was called the True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle and yeah, it was amazing, I think it was really. It was groundbreaking because I don't think there were a lot of books in the middle grade sphere with like a female character who was going on adventure on the high seas. So it was like mind opening to me in a lot of ways. 

20:11
Puck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt, which is, I just remember being so blown away at the way she kind of talked about immortality and mortality and existentialism and things that kids don't usually think about in those high terms. But obviously kids are thinking about you know what it means to be alive and and what it means to be, you know breathing and that sort of thing. But she did it in such a, she treated it in such an accessible way. I thought it was really powerful. Um, and then there's another book called Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt and it was I guess it wasn't adventure so much as like a survival of these four kids who are abandoned and have to find their way to safety. But all those books really they stuck with me even now. 

20:51 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And are there authors today that inspire you or that you kind of look and think that's who I want to be? 

20:58 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
For sure I would say in the there's. There's two authors in the adult sphere that I just love the way their voices work, and it's Humpa Lahiri and David Mitchell, and obviously they're writing very different stories than I'm writing, but the way that they construct sentences and their prose is just, is just beautiful. In the middle of great sphere there's a writer and, in particular, a book that I think I read a few years ago. It's called when you Trap a Tiger, by Tay Keller. 

21:27 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I have that sitting beside your book on the bookshelf, because I thought about the two of them in the same sphere. 

21:34 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
I love that. I love that because I love her voice in general. And then that book just I thought it was so powerful. She handled a very difficult topic so sensitively but so meaningfully that I remember just being blown away and it was like it was one of those books where I could feel myself like it was. I don't I feel emotional, but I don't usually cry. And then that book, I was like fighting back tears because it was just so well done. 

21:59 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
It really was, and I've been teaching with that book. I teach a children's lit course for librarians and reading specialists, and so we've been using that book when we talk about powerful literature. That sort of crosses those boundaries between fantasy and realism, right right, it's a great book. 

22:18
But I love the fact you brought that one up because, honestly, that was the first thing that came to mind when I read Kaya is. I thought this belongs on the shelf together. Oh, that is such a compliment. You could use them together as a teacher. So I'm so glad you said that. 

22:31 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
Oh, I'm so glad you said that. That means so much to me. That's a huge compliment, a huge compliment. So what are you working on right now? Are you able to share? I think I can share more generally. I'm working on a couple of middle grade novels Actually there's. Hopefully I'll be able to share some news about one of them soon. It's not quite at the stage of sharing it, but I've gotten some exciting news about that, and I'm always working on the short stories as well. I'm one of those people who, like, is only happy if I have a lot of projects kind of in the wings and in the pipeline. 

23:02 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
That makes total sense. Do you have any advice for a young person who might want to be a writer like you when they grow up? I do. 

23:10 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
I do. I would say that the main advice I could give is to just keep going, because I think that writing in general especially when you start writing, you know, long books it can be daunting and there can be a lot of moments of kind of like you might feel discouraged or defeated. You know it's there's so long and there's so many plot lines to keep track of and so many characters, and then you might hit writer's block and those are really tough. But I found that if you force yourself to keep going and I feel like it's difficult because I think writers um tend to be perfectionists, they don't even want to put down one word. That's not the perfect word. 

23:48
But if you keep going and write through that and just remind yourself that you can always come back and revise it later and, you know, change it later. Sometimes you can almost write a bridge to the next section and then when you come back you can make you know the stream of consciousness that you created into something powerful. But yeah, just keep going in writing. And also, when they get to the point of wanting to actually enter the publishing world, also keep going, because I think there's a publishing is is it can be a daunting area. You know there's a lot of there's a lot of gatekeeping and inevitable rejection, but just remember that it's that your voice deserves to be heard and there's someone out there who, who it will reach, and when you make that connection, it's, it's just, it's so amazing. 

24:33 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
That's great advice. And so the last question, since we're at the start of the new year and we're celebrating the birth of your book what's currently bringing you joy or what's bringing you hope? 

24:55 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
I love that question. I've actually been thinking about it a lot some time to to enjoy people around me Outside of what's happening right now. I, as I said, I love being on beaches, I love traveling, I love eating. It's always I always feel funny saying that, but food is like. Food is awesome. But in terms of just bringing me hope, I think that anytime I read or hear about children who are doing something to change the world, or better the world, it gives me so much hope. 

25:26
Like, I think, during the pandemic, there was something, there was a good news network and that was great, because they really highlighted things like that, like, and when I hear about, like kids who are trying to come up with inventions to fight climate change, or, you know, my daughter and her friends at one point put on several bake sales to benefit kids who are suffering from poverty or war in like Ukraine, syria, turkey, or I actually was watching one of your podcasts where you were talking with Catherine Applegate, who's author of the Ivan series, which I love. 

25:57
Yes, I love her and I love that series. She's amazing. She and her books are amazing. And she said something where she was like it was actually the kids who fought and told their parents that the guerrilla that Ivan was based on shouldn't be in prison, that he should be free. And I actually didn't know that and I was, so it gave me so much hope. Those kinds of stories give me hope that, like there's no, that there's all these kids who want to change the world. 

26:21 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I agree. So last question you mentioned you have a daughter. Has she read Kaya? 

26:26 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
She did, she did, she's. She's been so great. She was actually the perfect age to be a beta reader for Kaya, so she actually provided a lot of input. She's been very invested in the journey. She's been so proud, as I'm so proud of her, and you'll actually see her in like the dedication acknowledgements, which I think she was really excited about. 

26:47 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Well, and our daughters can be our toughest critics. So if she gave you two thumbs up, what are you all waiting for? 

26:52 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
Go get right, that was. That was the critics thumbs up. 

26:56 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I needed Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Gloria, for joining us on the Adventures in Learning podcast. It has been so great to have you and I will drop links so people can order your book. 

27:06 - Gloria L. Huang (Guest)
Oh, thank you so much. This has been so much fun. I appreciate it.