Unleashing Creativity and the Magic of Collaboration with author/illustrator Molly Idle

Imagine a world where art can reshape education and unlock the potential within each of us. That world is possible if we collaborate -- and this week's guest, Caldecott Honor-winning author-illustrator Molly Idle, has some inspiring ideas to get us started. 

In this episode, Molly shares her artistic journey, from her early inspiration sparked by The Little Mermaid to her influential work at DreamWorks Feature Animation. Discover how her beloved children's books, such as Pearl, Flora and the Flamingo, and I Don't Care, serve as more than just stories, becoming catalysts for educational initiatives and creative exploration. 

We delve into the magic of collaboration and challenge traditional education models, advocating for an approach that fosters creativity, critical thinking, and empathy. Join us as we explore the transformative power of friendship, art, and exploring new perspectives. 

And join us next month as we participate in the CBCC/Wild Tomorrow conservation adventure in South Africa. Ask us about conservation efforts or your favorite animals -- and we'll do our best to share the answers while we're there.

Chapter Summaries:

• 01:04:Molly Idle's Adventures in Learning
• 09:29:Power of the ARTS in STEAM
• 11:59:Reimagining Education Through Creativity
• 16:42:Experimenting with Collaboration and New Media: Working with Bestie Juana Martinez-Neal on I Don't Care
• 21:07:How do we use the form of our life sonnet to impact change?
• 26:48:Promo Ad
• 27:48:CBCC/Wild Tomorrow conservation trip to South Africa and the importance of dreaming big and acting now to make a difference
• 37:23: Leveled up collaboration in three upcoming books
• 39:45:Hope

Links and Resources:

• Website: Molly Idle
• Follow @mollyidle on Instagram
• Learn more about CBCC/Wild Tomorrow and their conservation efforts.

Join us on this journey of creativity and collaboration. Subscribe to our podcast to stay updated on future episodes, and don't forget to leave a review. Share your thoughts on reimagining education and how you embrace creativity in your life. Connect with us on social media and be part of the conversation!

Transcript

00:02 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So welcome to the Adventures in Learning podcast. I first discovered our next guest when I was the Director of Education at the Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum. Part of my job was to create curriculum that we took out on the road for steam nights, and I discovered this magical book called Pearl, and in it there was a beautiful mermaid. Called Pearl, and in it there was a beautiful mermaid. And I used this book as the basis for a challenge for our young audience members to clean the water, and so we worked on water filtration using this beautiful book. Let's fast forward a few years and I am fortunate enough to have Caldecott Honor-winning author-illustrator Molly Idle on the show today, and I get to go to South Africa with her as part of our Wild Tomorrow CBCC trip later this fall, which you all are going to be a part of. So, molly, welcome to the show. 

00:59 - Molly Idle (Guest)
Thank you so much for having me, Diane. This is so much fun, so much to look forward to. 

01:04 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I am so excited to have you. As I was just saying on the intro, you know I used your book as a gateway really for kids because Pearl was such a beautiful way to get them to think about a resourceful mermaid. She wasn't your typical mermaid and I remember just falling in love with that book. Since then I've discovered so many of your additional books. You know there's the Flora series I love. I Don't Care that you wrote with your friend Juana Martinez-Neal. You've got so many beautiful books. Witch Hazel, I was wondering can you talk a little bit about your adventures in learning? How did you become an author, illustrator, and what sparks your creativity? 

01:46 - Molly Idle (Guest)
Oh gosh. Well, as to becoming an author, illustrator, that was sort of a byproduct of a challenge that I didn't see coming up in my life, so I'd always had a very strong interest in the arts since I was tiny. My mom is an actress and director, and she also loves to paint, and so she had a painting studio set up in our garage from the time I can remember, from the time I could toddle, and always loved the process of making art. Growing up, though, my main aim like what I wanted to be when I grew up was an animator, and that was because of the movie the Little Mermaid, which ties into Pearl Like. I was just so enamored with it and I just like that, that movie. I didn't realize it at the time, but what it sparked was an interest in visual storytelling, not just making art as standalone pieces or for the beauty of it, but to communicate through art. 

02:49
And that movie it was the. It's the first movie that I remember seeing where I, like, I laughed and I cried at the end, you know, and I was like, oh my gosh, like drawings can make people feel like that. That's what I want to do, you know, that's and um and, but I had no idea how, like this. You know, growing up in in Phoenix, which was a relatively small city at the time, I had no idea what it meant, like what I had to do to become an animator and, um, I'm guessing that most of your listeners are probably around our age, and so when I go to school visits, I have to explain to people, like this is before email, this is before Google, like, if you wanted to like get in touch with somebody, it was old school, right, like. So I watched the Little Mermaid in theaters more than a dozen times. 

03:42
Like because you know, there was no DVD, there was no like, if you wanted to watch the movie you had to go to the movie theater, right, and I would watch the credits. And I found out who was in charge, like, who led the team of artists that drew Ariel, and it was an animator named Glenn Keane. And so I wrote Mr Keane a letter and I put some of my drawings in with it and I sent it off to Walt Disney Studios. And a couple months later Mr Keene was kind enough to write back to me, like I still I keep the letter in my desk giving me advice about, you know, carrying a sketchbook with me and learning to draw from real life, because that's, you know, what gives drawings that feel of and connectability. And then he included a little brochure for careers in Disney feature animation. And it was such like a touchstone moment for me in terms of, like, here was somebody going yeah, this is an attainable goal. If you work hard, you can do this. And so I was, like I was such a focused kid, like all through junior high, all through high school, then went through college this was the goal. 

04:54
And when I graduated college I was fortunate enough to be hired by DreamWorks Feature Animation and this was still in the traditional hand-drawn days, and I got to work there. I worked there just over five years and had such an amazing, amazing experience. I think when I look back, of course, it's a thrill to see your drawings on the screen and, to, you know, go to a movie theater. And I did that, you know, and so cool. But above and beyond that, what I enjoyed most was working with a huge team of people to make something together. That collaboration, it just sparked like such a love for that in me where, I mean, it takes hundreds of people to make an animated feature film and you see, when you watch, the credits go by and for me, being able to, like go next door from my office and somebody else's office and say, like, what do you think about this? Can I make that better? Or seeing what they're working on and think, oh, I want to try that next, you know, and just the collective pride when you would see something like we all made that together. There's no one of us that can be like I did that, you know, like that's all me. Um was just brilliant and so I was in. So this was the years. 

06:09
It was 98 to like 2004, um, and during this time a transition was happening in the entertainment industry, moving from traditional animation to computer generated animation, and of course it still takes artists, but it's a whole different. It's different medium it is, but, to the studio's credit, they they gave us all the opportunity. They're like we'll train you all. Like we can teach anybody how to use a computer, you can't teach anybody how to like have all the years of artistic experience you have. So you know, we all get in the computer lab, we're all learning and, like I said before this, I was super focused, all drawing all the time, like I just I loved it. They would have to, literally they'd be like go home, you know, like you have to go home now and I'm okay. And now then I had become a person who started to look at the watch. Are you kidding me? It's only 940. I've only been here 40 minutes. 

07:10
Like the computer did not spark the joy in me that creating art with my hands did, and this gave me sort of like a crisis of confidence, because I was like well, I always wanted to make movies. How could I not be enjoying that when I'm still being offered the opportunity to do this. And then I thought, well, I guess I have to go a little deeper. What is it about making films and animating? That I really enjoyed. 

07:35
And so it was time for like a little pros and cons list, right, and I was like, ok, well, I love making art with my hands. I love making art with other people. I was like, okay, well, I love making art with my hands, I love making art with other people, I love drawing characters and I love sharing their stories with an audience. What else would allow me to do that? And it was just like a no brainer, like, oh my gosh, I could make books. 

08:04
And that is what led me to illustrating. I I never thought I would, um, I I truly it wasn't on my radar and then, once I started, I was hooked. It was like this has been out there this whole time. Amazing, I can do this in my jammies. This is amazing. I never looked back, and it also, thankfully, fulfilled my love of making art with other people, because, even though it may just be one person's name that ends up on the cover, or two people's names, making a book is such a collaborative process and, again, that's one of the things I love most about making art. 

08:47 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that. You know, and as you were talking, it struck me that when we talk about trying to use STEM and STEAM with kids, we're doing it because we want them to be creative, collaborative, problem-solving individuals, and you've given two really good examples of how that happens that when you're creating and you're telling a story, you really are working with others, whether you're doing it from an animation point of view, whether you're applying the technology of a computer animated thing, or whether you're doing it pen and paper. That we don't often think of the arts as being a STEM career, but in so many ways what you're doing is STEM at its finest. 

09:29 - Molly Idle (Guest)
Oh my gosh, I really, you know, I, I know that we there. There are very valid reasons to separate. You know, like this is the arts and this is science and this is, but to me, at their cores, they are all about creation and an open-mindedness and collaboration, and if we can spark an interest in those, those like really deeply rooted needs and parts of the human experience, however you choose to apply them then in your daily life, whether it's in your career as a scientist or whether it's in your career as a stay-at-home parent who has to like navigate what different people want and including them all into something that everybody is okay with. It's so, so valuable. I know just from our email exchanges that you and I share a love of theater, and my mom has always been involved in the theater and so has our entire family as a result, and when we would work with younger kids together on theatrical projects, it was amazing to see how those things applied to them as they grew up. Some of our favorite kids, the most creative, the wildest, funniest kids um, one of them is now a neuroscientist. 

11:00
You know, like that, that creativity, that love to like dive in and not be afraid to try new ideas and see what happens, the sort of yes and of improv that just translates to all sorts of different facets of your life. Can you get up and talk in front of people? Are you comfortable sharing your thoughts with others and listening really listening? That's such a skill that the theater teaches. These are things that are applicable everywhere, and so I always sort of scoff when people are like let's cut the arts. I was like, well then, you don't realize it, but you're cutting other things as well. Like you're creating less effective scientists. You are creating, like you know, narrow-minded researchers, which is like an oxymoron, you know narrow-minded researchers, which is like an oxymoron, you know. So I always think like, oh, you have to spark an interest in just being interested before anything else. 

11:59 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Yeah, I've been thinking a lot, especially this week, about how education might redefine itself. 

12:06
I think we're at this, whether we want it or not. We're at a crossroads and we've got this ability to look at how do we re-envision what education is for all kids, and I think that the systems we've used for years don't serve any longer in a lot of ways. You know it's not about fact memorization and things like that, because every kid out there has access to one of these. You know they've got access to a portable computer that has overwhelming information. What's missing is that ability to think creatively, to discern what's true, what's not, to test it, you know, to think for yourself, to be able to apply empathy and a playful spirit, as you said, to dive in and take risks. And that's where I think, when we can emphasize the arts, emphasize playful learning, emphasize connecting things again rather than siloing them off into these separate areas, I think if we could do that, we might find ourselves raising a generation that's better equipped to meet the world's problems head on and actually do something about them, rather than feeling paralyzed by how horrible everything is. 

13:25 - Molly Idle (Guest)
I couldn't agree more. I could not agree more. I could not agree more. I think one of the things that that being creative teaches you and everybody is creative I do not. I do not subscribe to the theory that like it's something you're born with, trust at the process. It's like when you watch a gymnast do I love to watch anybody who is really good at what they do, do what they do, and I don't care if that is flipping pancakes or like flipping themselves as a gymnast. You know, like when you watch somebody who's really amazing at what they do, you see all the tiny steps, like the result of all the work, all the tiny steps. 

14:16
But it did not start like that. I mean, there are, of course, exceptions, and not everybody is going to become a Mozart and not everybody is going to be a Van Gogh. Of course not, of course not. But everybody can make art and learn about how just a tiny idea then becomes a little something more, maybe a scribble, and then, while you're making that scribble, you're thinking about that and that leads you to do the next part. Oh, this part of the scribble looks like this, and I will then own that a little bit. And while you're doing that, you go oh, I've done that, I have to do this other thing. 

14:54
I think the mistake people make with creativity is that they think it is like this blinding light of vision that happens to an artist right, or a musician or whatever, that this is it, and it appears in its entirety and I will now give it to you, and that could not be further from the truth. It is this groping like feeling out of things that only happens through the process of working. There's only so much that thinking about it can do. The action of creating, whether it's a play or a dance or a drawing or a song or an experiment, is what leads to that next thing. 

15:35
And so when people tell me I can't draw, well, only because you're not drawing, you know the only reason you can't draw is because you're not drawing

15:44 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
 and a friend of mine calls it failure reps 

15:47 - Molly Idle (Guest)
that you know for every oh. I love that there are so many things that you don't see, but you learn from each one of those. And so, yeah, you do that squiggle, or you plant that seed and you realize, oh, I put the seed in the wrong place. So the next time you replant, replant a different spot, exactly. 

16:07
Gardening is very much the same, and I will tell you, diane. So over the last year or two I've been expanding, actually thanks in large part to my friend, juana Martinez-Neal, who you had on the show when we made I Don't Care. Together, we decided to use a medium that neither of us had made a book in before, sort of level, the playing field. The whole book itself is about. One of the lines in it is I really do care that you always play fair and don't change the rules when I'm winning, and I love that line. And that very much informed our choices in making the book we wanted. 

16:42
You know, juana is this amazing painter and uses multi like multimedia in her artworks and I, up to that point, had been very much like a colored pencil artist. 

16:54
That was my thing, that's what I did, and so we immediately set both of those aside. We can't use either of those because that gives one or the other of us an unfair advantage in making the art and puts then, by the very nature of it, put the other at a slight disadvantage. Right, and that's not what friends do. So we decided to use another media and it was like I was like, oh my gosh, now what else will I try? It just like opens this door a crack. I had so much fun and I'm not sure you know. Just in in, as as in when you read a book with somebody, so much of your feelings about that book can be about the person who's reading it with you. You know, some of my favorite books are just as tied to my memories of my parents reading them as the story themselves, and my love of experimenting with the new media I'm sure is tied up in my feelings for doing that with my bestie, you know it was amazing and I love that book. 

17:50 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
It's beautiful. 

17:52 - Molly Idle (Guest)
Oh, we had so much fun that we decided to make more together. But that opened this door to like experimenting with different media. And it's one thing to experiment two dimensionally for me, because that's been my like, my comfort level, like my wheelhouse. But recently a manuscript fell on my desk about a theater and about kids putting on a show, and I decided that, like, like Shakespeare, the, the men and the women being merely players, you know all the world's a stage I decided to actually build a small theater, like in three dimensions, out of wood and fabric and like everything but the kitchen sink, which I had no idea like how challenging it would be. But what I found through that process was that same sort of sketching that I do, that same sort of like a school, leads to an idea. I mean, I had no idea how to build this theater. 

18:48
One day my mom comes home and she found this huge gold guild mirror that was falling apart. Somebody had set by the side of the road and she was like, do you think you could use this? And I looked at it. In my mind I thought that gold frame reminded me of the proscenium of like an old school theater and I was like all right, that's where it starts. So, like, I built everything around this frame and so that, like that, one little thing informed all these ideas and I that got me thinking. All right, so now I've taken this from two dimensional scribbles to three dimensional art scribbles. Right, you know where I'm now building things? And like throwing away pieces of wood, nope, too short, too long. You know, like gluing things, tearing things apart. 

19:31
Then my mom and I took up gardening and to bring this back to your tomato thing, you we have. I wish we could. I could tell you that we were like such, like methodical gardeners. We will do all the research, we will plan all this out, but we're sort of just throwing things in our garden and then, well, that didn't work. What do we try next? Right, and it occurred to me that these are the same sort of skills that, like, we've been using in the arts all along. 

19:57
But the more you do it, the more you get comfortable treating other parts of your life in the same way. Like, obviously there are boundaries, you're not going to hurt anybody, and that's like part of the trust that goes into. Like trust falls, and collaboration is that, like, everybody always feels safe. But you know that within these boundaries you've created, there are no wrong choices. You can do it again, I can plant more seeds, I can saw another piece of wood, I can recycle this paper and get a new one, and so it's really exciting to think about the differences we can make in that way. But I would like to sort of circle this back to like our trip to South Africa, because there is one thing that we can't just get another of, and that's the planet, and so I think we have to start realizing that we all need to start playing together to create some solutions that are workable for everybody, because this is one trust fall exercise that's going to have very serious repercussions for us all if we don't get it together. 

21:07 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
No, that makes total sense, and you know, I saw Wrinkle in Time at Arena Stage this past weekend. They've put together a musical of it and it made me go back and reread the book, because, you know, I haven't read it and there's a section in it that has been sticking with me that I've been thinking about, which is the idea that life is like a sonnet. It has a certain structure from beginning to end, but what we do within the form is how we make our difference. We get to choose what we do, and I feel like we're at a very specific point in time where we've got this sonnet. We know what the parameters are in terms of helping the earth, in terms of making a difference, and we've got to make decisions about what that form looks like. 

21:52 - Molly Idle (Guest)
Right, I absolutely agree. I love that metaphor too, that it's like a sonnet and it is. You know, and I know that people can get hung up on like well, if there are these parameters in which I have to work, you know, like, what's the difference? Aren't we all going to turn out something the same? But I honestly feel that limitations can force us to be more creative, because they give you something immediately off which you can bounce an idea. Like you know, if there's a wall in front of you, all right, we're gonna have to work with that wall. I'm gonna immediately start bouncing something off that you know. Like what can we? 

22:30
Okay, given that wall, then what you know, when you have an entirely blank canvas and everything to choose from, it can feel a little overwhelming sometimes to try and make creative choices and decisions. But I feel like we have some very clear parameters in which we have to work this time, which should give us all the opportunity to make some really wonderful creative decisions within those parameters. And that that's exciting to me, because you just never know, and you never know what's going to happen when you put like two people together, like what that will spark, because their interaction immediately changes the decisions they can make, just putting them together, and then you bring in another person and another person, and to me it is fascinating, endlessly fascinating, the opportunities we have. And I think that we may not be framing it right, you know, like I feel so that the the frame of mind in which we approach something really can determine how we approach it and and therefore, the solutions that we come up with. Sorry, my brain was like trying to catch up. 

23:46 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I totally get where you're going with that. It sounds to me, as you're talking, what I'm hearing is that you know we've got sort of these parameters that we're working in and we've got this opportunity to really vision what the world could look like, and it might start with a couple of people working together. Like often, I think we think we've got to fix the entire system and it's like a big systemic change. And what we failed to realize and what can be really frustrating is when systems aren't working. Yes, they need to be fixed, but often it starts on our community or, you know, our individual level. Even everything we do make a difference and, yes, we need to be working up here, but we also need to be working on the interpersonal, connected level. 

24:35 - Molly Idle (Guest)
Yeah, absolutely, but also that, like, just the frame of mind sorry, somebody's leaving the workshop here the frame of mind in which we approach something can be can greatly affect how we go about it. Right now, we can choose to be in a see, like a feeling of panic about this. We have all these problems oh my gosh, this is awful, this is terrible and we panic mode, let's solve these things. How do we solve them right? Or we can go, wow, things need to be so much better than they are. What can I do do to help with that? You know and I'm not saying that this isn't something that is panic worthy, obviously panic worthy, right, like, it's important. But does panicking and and spreading like the fear and negativity aspect of it, does that get us anywhere? No, I mean, I will argue that all positive change begins with a negative thought. This needs to be better. This isn't good enough, right, you know. But then it's time to switch into a mode of like, being proactive and helping. How can I make this better? This could be even better. You know, like and that sort of it sounds crazy to say that sort of energy, but when you approach somebody else with, I need your help making this even better versus this terrible problem I need you to fix. Like then? 

26:02
People approach it differently, and I think I think we know what panic is getting us and it's not enough, and so I think we need to really lean heavily into the like I could use your help. People like to help. Everyone likes to help if they can. Not everyone likes to feel put upon. This is your job. Go do this now. But if I said I could really use your help, you know that is it's a hard thing, though it's a hard thing to ask for help, but knowing that we all need help and that this is a project that needs all of us, I'm hoping we'll help remove some of the stigma of asking for help. 

26:48 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So let's talk a little bit about Wild Tomorrow in South Africa. What prompted your heart to want to be part of this trip and what are you hoping to be able to share when you come back? 

27:00 - Molly Idle (Guest)
well. So for years and decades now, juana and I have been friends and, as is the custom with besties, sometimes we look back and we go like, wow, how did that happen? You know, like the development of a deep friendship doesn't happen like instantaneously, not unlike creating a piece of art. It is like these small moments of little bits of trust and revealing little bits of things, and before you know, then one day you look back and go, oh my gosh, our lives are so intertwined. Right? 

27:29
One of the things that we've discussed at length is how different we are in so many ways. We're so alike in a number of ways, but outwardly we appear to the world very different. We're born in different countries, different skin tones, like a lot of things that really don't inform our friendship at all. Right, in some ways do In terms of how we approach things and look at things and look at the world, and we were talking one day about how having friendships with somebody who is very different than you in some way is so expanding as a person. You get to know them and you get to see past the differences that most people see on the surface and then, when you get underneath, you realize how similar that we are on a universal level and we were talking about that, about the importance of spending quality time with people who are very different from you, not as, like a Pokemon thing, I got to collect them all. 

28:50
That would be awful, you know Like no, but honestly, because you are genuinely interested in knowing all people and understanding all people and where they come from. And if you understand how a person has grown up and learned and lived up to the point that you meet them and then you get to know them better and you get to understand how similar you are and yet why they may think differently about something than you do, because you have had a very different lived experience than they do, and then you can share that together and create a deeper understanding. And through understanding you sort of erase judgment. There's just a knowledge of why the person is that way, not a judgment, just an understanding. 

29:44
And we were talking about how art cuts through so much of the surface stuff. When you make art with somebody, you really can't be concerned about who their parents were or where they lived. You're immediately into something deeper. Why does this composition work? What are we trying to say? What story are we telling? 

30:10
And both of us had a deep interest with getting to know people all over the world and see how they were creating and to see how their methods of creating differ from ours and how they were similar and what we could learn from one another. 

30:29
And so in as much as Wild Tomorrow is about, obviously about saving and rewilding the land. 

30:38
It's also they are very much an organization that concerns themselves with the people and the animals who live on the land, and that to me seemed like the holistic sort of approach that we need because, as we were talking about before, when we create something with somebody, whether it's a drawing or whether it's a rewilded space or whether it's a creche or a school, um, we are learning together. To create something with somebody is to immediately, immediately establish a level of intimacy and rapport with them that can take ages of lunches or chit chats or small talk, and I don't believe that we have ages and ages to figure out these sorts of problems that are facing us today. We really need to just get in there and get our hands dirty, and whether that's by creating like an erosion barrier or getting in there and finding out what you don't know about people and what they don't know about you, that was fascinating to me, and so when John and Haley said, do you want to go? 

31:51
I was like you bet I do, let's go let's go save some rhinos and some people and the planet and, in turn, save each other. This isn't about like going somewhere and fixing somebody else's problems. This is about learning how we can like take they are doing there and, like a tomato plant, transplant it someplace else. Right, like, if that's working there, tomato plant, transplant it someplace else. Right, like, if that's working there, let's try it here. 

32:21 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
You know we need to be cross-pollinating to use another gardening metaphor, and I think layered on that, at least for me, is also the opportunity to help kids have a chance to travel with us, because so many kids never get the opportunity to leave their own backyard, their county, their state. And if you can show them that there are other kids and other people who are grappling with similar issues and you know tackling them, and that there's hope, that you're planting seeds of hope, then I think there's power in that as well, because, as you said, then you transplant that hope and you can bring it here and vice versa. It's a way to cross pollinate. 

32:59 - Molly Idle (Guest)
Yeah, and I truly think you know. You were talking earlier about how we're at this sort of a I feel like the word inflection point gets bandied about a lot these days an excess, or just a moment in time where a wrinkle in time where where, where we have, where we have this opportunity to completely reimagine so many of the systems in which we exist, and we should be imagining them as something better. 

33:32
You know, like, like, if you're going to, if you're going to dream, dream big, dream huge. You know, like you said, they don't work for everybody right now. What if they did? What if these systems worked for literally everybody in some way? 

33:48 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
that is a dream worth dreaming, you know, and it's something that I feel like we should all be able to get behind, yeah, and the sci-fi nerd in me is like are we envisioning the Hunger Games or are we envisioning the Star Trek world? And I think I'd rather see the Star Trek world of the two. 

34:10 - Molly Idle (Guest)
Oh, absolutely, and I feel like I feel that so often people feel powerless and not just kids, adults to feel lost in all the problems that we have, and and to tell them like, honestly, we all have more power than we, than we give ourselves credit for, not to create on our own some huge cataclysmic change, but together. And so just knowing that if you're doing your level best every day to be kind and to be helpful and to see what can be made better, if everybody is doing that, that'll do it. You know, like that's the key that we all have to be in it together and not it does us just zero good to draw a line and say, well, I'm only helping these people over here, or these animals over here, or this system over there. 

35:02 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
It's all interconnected and I think that it's being able to see the world more holistically and realize, yes, I'm not going to solve every single problem, but if I'm doing my level best and I'm working here, that's going to spill over and it's going to carry over to these other things and all of that together in ways you can't even know. 

35:22
Yeah, and you know, and you may never see the impact that you're having in your one small life, um, you know, because you don't have that view of the entire quilt, but it's making a difference. 

35:38 - Molly Idle (Guest)
Oh yeah, you can never know. You can never know. I mean, honestly, to sort of bring it back to Pearl, the idea that, like, one tiny thing can make a difference. And when I'm in schools and I talk with kids about Pearl and I talk with them a little bit about my artistic journey, like we started off talking about, you know, when my mom gave me paints as a kid, she never could have known what that would lead. You know that that would lead me to drawing all the time and and falling in love with visual storytelling. When Mr Keene wrote me that very nice letter, he could not have known the fire that it would light under me. And then I couldn't have known that animation was just a stepping stone for me on the way to another means of storytelling. 

36:28
There's just right, you can't know, but you can make sure, to the extent that you're able to put good things out in the world, to help where we wow, you did a really good job, or this meal was delicious, or I really like how you helped that person. She was like say it, say it. So often we don't say you know the nice thing If you're thinking it, though, if you think of something kind to say to somebody say it, you know. And the same for an action. If you think of something good, you can do do it. 

37:23 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
It's not going to have a harmful effect, so do it. Speaking of putting good out into the world, I know that you have three books that are coming out next year. Do you want to share a little bit about those and what's out this year? 

37:33 - Molly Idle (Guest)
Oh well, this year, year this is poor planning on my part. I don't have anything new out this year because I've been working on some huge projects. Um, juana and I have a book together that will be out next spring, which is called off the wall, and it is about collaboration, the act of collaboration. 

37:49 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I want it right now for the. Stem work with kids. I'm like that is perfect. 

38:03 - Molly Idle (Guest)
Then I am illustrating a book called the Truck Says Moo, which is sort of about subverting expectations, which is super funny and written by Alison B McGinty, who also wrote one of my favorite books in recent years, bathe the Cat, which is a really funny book she just thinks funny and I love it. I feel so grateful to be able to work on a project of hers. And the third is by Chelsea Lynn Wallace and it's called we Are the Theater and it's about a group of kids putting on a show. I love it. So those are. 

38:39
Those are the projects that I've got coming out next year and I'm super excited about all of them, and all of them have taken um levels of collaboration to like I've leveled up and this for a video game of collaboration. 

38:54
It's been so much fun to involve more and more people in the work and, and that has just and I'm looking forward to doing that more and more um, I feel like you know we were talking about seeing things through just like a. You only get a glimpse of things at a time and and and I feel like where, where, where I can see right now is is this little illuminated patch that is about bringing people together. That's what is is interesting to me, and in the past. It's been other things. You know, like we go through phases in our life where we learn a lot about one thing that we're really interested in and then we move on to something else and we learn a lot about that and um, right now I'm just interested in learning about other people. The more we understand about each other, the better we'll get along. 

39:45 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that, and that's a great segue into my last question for the day, which is what brings you hope

39:49 - Molly Idle (Guest)
 oh, so many things, it's hard to pick just one. 

39:57
I'm going to say hope itself. The idea of hope gives me hope, that that's a concept that we have as people, as, like a species, do other species have hope, hope, I don't know. That's something that makes us really special. Right, the ability to reason, opposable thumbs, obviously, let me hold a pencil, but the idea of hope. If we can create an idea like that man, there's nothing we can't do. 

40:32 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that. Molly, thank you for joining us today. It has been a delight to have you on the Adventures in Learning podcast and I look forward to traveling with you next month. 

40:42 - Molly Idle (Guest)
This has been so much fun. I can't wait to keep chatting. We've got a long plane ride in which to do it. Yes, we do.