The Second Chapter: Erin Entrada Kelly

Erin Entrada Kelly: It's that old expression that I love, which is wherever you go, there you are. So you never really got out of the limbo because the limbo is you. So maybe we're always in limbo.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Two things can be true at once. We can be moving forward and standing still, caught somewhere between momentum and stasis. We can be haunted by the past and yet reaching toward what's next. We can feel grateful and undone all at the same time. Erin Entrada Kelly is a New York Times bestselling author and two time Newbery Medal winner.

She's written books like Hello Universe, First State of Being, and We Dream of Space, character driven stories that explore the interior lives of ordinary kids and their extraordinary courage. Her latest novel, the last resort, ventures somewhere new, a haunting supernatural story that still carries Erin's signature heart. Today, Aaron returns for what we call the second chapter, a series where we bring back previous guests of the show and ask them to dive a little deeper into subjects where we think they've got a lot of wisdom to drop on us. In this episode, Erin digs into limbo, being stuck between moving and not moving, knowing and not knowing, or living and not living. She shares how her cancer diagnosis and journey have changed the pace of her life and her writing.

You'll also hear an intriguing new technique to help you sleep and a ghost story that will definitely keep you up all night. My name is Jordan Lloyd Bookie, and this is The Reading Culture, a show where we speak with diverse authors about ways to build a stronger culture of reading in our communities. We dive deep into their personal experiences and inspirations. Our show is made possible by Beanstack, the leading solution for motivating people to read more. Learn more at beanstack.com, and make sure to check us out on Instagram at the reading culture pod and subscribe to our newsletter for bonus content at thereadingculturepod.com forward slash newsletter.

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Ready to turn the page? Visit beanstack.com to learn more. Hello, Erin. Man, lots going on since the last time I spoke with you.

Erin Entrada Kelly: There is a lot going on. Yes. Good, bad, and ugly.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Good, bad,

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: and ugly.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Where are you today, Delaware?

Erin Entrada Kelly: I am at home in Delaware in my new office space. So that's where I am.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh, yeah. That's why I

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: was asking because it looks kind of different. Okay.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. Nice. So let's start with momentum. And I'll just start with like a question. Generally, wanna know what does momentum mean to you?

How do you define momentum?

Erin Entrada Kelly: I think about, as far as storytelling goes, I think about how are things evolving and what is causing them to evolve. And actually, I think about that in my life too as far as momentum goes. I'm very much a person who loves momentum. I don't like to sit still. I don't like inertia, you know, in my life or in my stories.

So I think momentum is just the act of moving forward toward

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: something. And in your life, what are the things that like help to build your momentum that other people or things around you support the momentum in your world?

Erin Entrada Kelly: The biggest person pushing my momentum is myself, for sure. It's kind of a double edged sword because a lot of my I I almost have a I don't know if I wanna say addiction to momentum because that sounds maybe a little dramatic. But, I'm always a person who's looking to the next thing. And sometimes when you're always looking to the next thing, then you miss the things that are right in front of you. But usually what propels me forward is I'm a very achievement oriented person.

And once I meet or achieve a goal, I've already forgotten that goal and now I wanna achieve something else. One of

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: the posts that you wrote on Instagram or wherever on social, but it said, I'm fueled by ambition and momentum. It's incredibly frustrating to be limited by things outside of my control, like pain and fatigue, and sometimes my body feels like a cage. And yeah. So I wonder what it felt like to have that, what you perceived as your momentum, like, sort of stopped in its tracks in a way.

Erin Entrada Kelly: Yes. That's a great question. You know, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, a very aggressive form of breast cancer in November 2023. And I had to go through very, very harsh chemo and immunotherapy and surgery and radiation. And all of that ended about a year ago.

And I thought, okay, well, let's hit the ground running now that we got that over with. Let's keep let's go. Let's go. So this year I had like four books come out and, did a ton of traveling, did not allow myself much rest, which I think goes back to that achiever thing that we were just talking about because I do not like to rest. Like for me, relaxation is almost stressful.

So the problem is that I'm still that person, but the cancer treatment has ravaged my body. So I have rheumatoid arthritis now as a result of cancer treatment. So my hands are in a lot of pain and it just is really, really defeating because I believed that if I just powered through and I just kept working, kept doing, pay no attention to the side effects behind the mirror kind of situation, that it would go away or get better. And, like, I'm just gonna pretend it's not happening, that kind of situation. That doesn't work apparently.

So I'm still kind of dealing with what that looks like and how can I prioritize my own self care? And what does that even look like for someone who is not good at rest?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I do think that a lot of people, yeah, power through. Did you continue to work like through chemo or you just like whenever you could just still, when you're being had all these different treatments?

Erin Entrada Kelly: Yes. I did a lot of writing and, you know, a lot of people said, well, how did you do all that work? I can't believe it. And honestly, writing has always been my escape and my safe space and my therapy and my comfort. So to me, it made total sense that I produced so much writing while I was sick because that's what heals me.

So emotionally, I've been all over the place this year, you know, and I've had some very, very down moments, especially recently as the arthritis has gotten worse. But that's something I'm still working through. I don't know how to be me in the body that I'm in now. So I have to figure that out. You know?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: That's like a very deep statement. Yes. I know I know from your Newberry speech, it's not gonna be through meditation. That's not gonna be the answer.

Erin Entrada Kelly: No. But you know what I have discovered? What? What's working? People think it's so weird, but I'm gonna tell you, is ASMR.

Now I discovered cinematic ASMR. I just wanna tell everyone that if you if you're not familiar with ASMR and you think it's just people like chewing in a microphone, it's much more than that. Okay. If you look up cinematic ASMR, it will blow you away what people have done, like the the level of skill and talent in production. So for example, you might have a scene where you're at the tailor, like, you know, at a tailor shop, and they're like, oh, let me measure you for your dress.

And then they have the the sound of the fabric and the sound of the measuring tape and, like and the sound of the person, obviously. And I have listened to some stereo whisper ASMR where it goes from ear to ear. And there's a couple people who their ASMR is all there's this one guy, oh, I forget his name, but he just whispers about nonsense. Like, he just rambles, but it's to put you to sleep. Now I I did play this for my husband because I was all excited.

I found this new thing that calms me down at night. And like, I listened to it and it creeped him out a little bit. Someone whispering so close in his ear, which I totally understand. No.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: If it's not for you, it's not for you. Yeah.

Erin Entrada Kelly: Correct. But I'm into it. So that has helped me. I listen to ASMR every night to fall asleep, and it allows me to focus on it it's kind of like a form of meditation in that I'm I'm immersed in that so my mind can't run away with me, but I'm also not being told to do stuff. Yes.

So that's what I do, and it quiets my brain quite a bit.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Momentum comes easily to Erin. It's never been hard for her to find. She thrives on productivity, on finishing one project, and already thinking about the next one. But when life forces a pause, as it at least tried to for Erin, it can change not only how you move, but how you make meaning from that motion. So I wanted to know how has her relationship to writing changed through all of it?

Erin Entrada Kelly: I have thought a lot this year about what kind of books I want to write, and I want to continue writing the books that I'm best known for. But it has made me think about the kinds of books that I wanna write in addition to those so called quiet, very character forward internal journey books, which is what I'm best known for. And I love those, but I have also been a lifelong lover of horror and scary books and scary movies and scary television. And it's it's kind of like, it feels like a departure, but it's really not. It's just, you know, that's who I am as a reader and as a consumer.

I either want to watch a really dramatic movie that's gonna make me cry and break my heart, or I wanna watch a really scary movie. And that's just kind of both of my lanes, if you will. So for the past, you know, ten or so years since I've been publishing, I haven't really explored that side of my writing life. So I'm at a place now where I feel like I can and maybe I was always in this place, but in my head, I wasn't, where I can explore other genres and walk into the the meadow of these other genres that I haven't been exploring lately. So, you know, to that end, I have the last resort, which just came out last month, September 2025 with Scholastic, which is a spooky haunted house story.

And I have my friend Elliot Schrafer and I are launching a technology horror series next year in July 2026. And I wanna continue writing those stories as well as the other ones that I'm known for.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. First of all, I did wanna just key in on what you're saying, which is that you're sort of like, you had this moment to stop and be like, let me not just follow the whatever the Momentum. Momentum. Like, what's the opposite of oh, wait. Yeah.

Okay. Of just like going with what works or what, you know, what what has what has worked. Let's put

Erin Entrada Kelly: it Yes. That

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Exactly. You write about these quiet people, but you're like, now that's not your personality doesn't feel like so, you know.

Erin Entrada Kelly: Not anymore.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Not anymore. Right. There was. But I'm thinking about just the beauty, I guess, of being able to do that because I'm recently I met with Jason Reynolds, and he was telling me how he's gonna like, one of his next projects he has coming is, like, these retelling not I don't it's retelling or his own version of, like, James and the Giant Peach and Willy Wonka. And my first reaction to that was like, oh, man.

Like, you've never done anything like that. That doesn't feel like you is, you know, more or less what I said, I think. And he was like, yeah. But I'm an artist, and artists wanna create. This is the thing that I'm known for this, realistic fiction, and this is what I do and da da da.

But, like, I wanna do something else and feel fulfilled and have like you're describing.

Erin Entrada Kelly: Yes. Exactly. I totally relate to that. And it's also like, you know, they say write what you read. You know, that's like a piece of advice that writers hear a lot.

But what do you do if you read everything?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. You're so well read. You're always like reading this,

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: now reading, now reading. Yeah.

Erin Entrada Kelly: Yeah. I I mean, I read so many different kinds of books and I contain multitudes as does everyone. And I want to make sure that that I I honor all the multitudes of Aaron.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Let's talk just a little bit about limbo, which, of course, I'm thinking about because of first state of being and also, honestly, last resort if you think in some regard. But I wonder about, like, limbo is this you could think of it as, like, the opposite of momentum more or less, or at least it's just like a stand feels like a standstill. And I wonder, like, what drew you if you can remember back to that time, like, what drew you to that idea of, like, being caught in a time? What what attracted you to the idea of a of a limbo of sorts?

Erin Entrada Kelly: You know what? I think it's because I have historically been and still am, as we've kind of discussed, a person who is neglectful of the present and is always looking to the future. And at least when I was younger, I would say I worried a lot about the past, and I thought a lot about the future, and I didn't wanna be in my present. And now as an adult, I I don't think about the past that much, but I am very much a forward momentum person. And the problem with that is you miss things.

Right? There's things happening right now that you don't notice or that you don't see. And I wanted to explore the idea of something that I think most people struggle with, which is, okay. But right here, now is the best place to be. Right?

That's kind of the thing about the first state of being. And it's true because it's that concept of kind of taking things for granted. You know? So I try now to cherish those little moments that I mean, it's easy to cherish the big obvious moments like getting married, having a baby, graduating, and all these things. But I like to cherish the moments, for example, when my husband and I are are cuddled up watching a TV show and I'll I'll think, this is nice.

I'm content. This is a happy place I'm in. And we need to do more of that, you know, especially now because everything feels very terrible and heavy. So, you know, honestly, I feel like a lot of writers when they're writing a story or telling a story, a lot of it is because they're trying to answer a question for themselves. Not always, but often.

Like, I think for the first data being, the question would be, how do I live in the present moment? Which is something that, you know, I struggle with. And the book is basically me answering myself, but also ironically me not taking my own advice. I'm I'm basically importing a lesson to readers that I haven't even learned or that I'm still learning, which is what prompted me to write the book in the first place.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Mhmm.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: And you're trying to answer that, but still, like, struggling to Correct. Move along and do it. Yeah. Did you feel like when you were sort of sick or as you've been going through this that that was was that a state of limbo for you?

Erin Entrada Kelly: I feel like when I was sick, in my mind, I was in limbo because it was like, okay. Now I'm stuck here, and I need to get out of here and go on with my life. And before I was somewhere else, and now I'm stuck in this limbo. But the reality is that whenever I got out of that limbo, quote unquote, I didn't really get out of it because it's that old expression that I love, which is wherever you go, there you are. Yeah.

You know, in my head I thought, okay, when I'm in remission and I'm done with treatment, I'm gonna just go back to being me and I'm just gonna erase this little two year hiatus, cancer hiatus, the worst sabbatical ever. Let's just move on from this. But the reality being, of course, that impossible. You know? You cannot erase whatever you've been through.

I mean, anyone listening, you know, you can't just erase this part and then move on because now you're a different person. So I'm trying to figure out who this new person is, and I'm also mourning the the previous Aaron of the past. So never really got out of the limbo because the limbo is you. So maybe we're always in limbo. I don't know.

Or maybe we're never in limbo.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Right. Right. I guess it

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: could be either. It could

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: be both. Let's talk a

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: little bit about ghosts, which if you

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: think about it, it's like another kind of limbo or type limbo in the sense that there's like space between it's a space between living and not living, and you've written about them in your work in The Last Resort. And I'm first curious, okay, do you believe in ghosts? Do believe in what you're writing? And then also what draws you to the idea of being caught between two worlds?

Erin Entrada Kelly: Do I believe in ghosts? My answer is no, but I don't think that's true. I think I'm lying to myself and here's why. Okay. Ghosts terrify me.

So if I don't believe in them, why would I be scared of them? See what I mean? Yes.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Why do they terrify you so much?

Erin Entrada Kelly: Because they you can't see them and they're kind of stuck in a limbo. And, you know, I think it's the unknown and the unseen, both of which I find frightening because I'm the type of person who wants all the information at all times. So that's why they scare me. And do I wanna be a ghost? That's a great question.

I think it depends on what my options are.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Co op. It could be. For example mapped those out, so why don't you lay out your options?

Erin Entrada Kelly: Okay. So the option is I could go to let's say there's a heaven. Could I go to heaven and just like, am I stuck as a ghost or do I have options to go somewhere else? Because I would like to see, like, my daughter grow grow up. I mean, she's she's 28, but I would like to see her life unfold and see the people I love.

But then again, that would be really sad because then I'm seeing them and I'm not with them. So I don't know if I would want that. So then if my option is to not exist, that sounds scary. But then again, if I just cease to exist, I won't know anyway. So what difference does it make?

So my ideal situation would be and this is kind of what I believe honestly happens, is to just become one with the universe. You know? And for someone who fails so terribly at meditation, now I sound like someone who meditates all the I just wanna become part energy of the leaves and the sky and the mountains and all this other stuff and just kind of be a spirit to not maybe not even sentient, but just existing if that

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. Makes any

Erin Entrada Kelly: On another plane.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. It does make sense.

Erin Entrada Kelly: I do have a ghost story to tell you. And maybe this is what's nudging me toward believing in ghosts. So this is a 100% true story. Years ago, I was staying at the Montelion Hotel in New Orleans, and I was on the Fourteenth Floor. So I was by myself.

And in the middle of the night around 3AM, I was awakened by the fire alarm. It was blaring, blaring, blaring so loud. I get out of bed. I open the door. I peek down the hall.

There's no one in the hall, but the lights are flashing. The alarm's going off. And I think, great. I'm gonna have to walk down to the you know, evacuate the building. I mean, that's what you do.

So I start walking down 14 flights of stairs, and I have to plug my ears because that's how loud the fire alarm is. And I'm walking, but I'm the only person in the stairwell, which I think is odd because this is a hotel in the French Quarter. Okay? So I get to the bottom and my ears are ringing from the fire alarm. I open the door to the lobby and I step into the lobby.

And there are people in there and they turn and look at me quizzically because I am wearing my pajamas. Hair is looking crazy, and I'm covering my ears. And it's the middle of the night. And this employee walks up to me and he says, do you need help with something? And I said, I came down because of the fire alarm.

And he said, what fire alarm? No way. And I said, the fire alarm that just went off. My ears are still ringing from the alarm. And he says, There was no fire alarm.

And I say, There was definitely a fire alarm because the lights were flashing. So he took me over to the manager and he asked the manager, was there a fire alarm? And the manager tells me there was no fire alarm. I find out later that there had been two fires on the Fourteenth Floor of the Montelion Hotel. One of them was in the early nineteen hundreds, and the other one was in, I think, the nineteen sixties on that same floor.

Shut up.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: No. Yes. Oh. Oh.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh. I don't like that. I don't like it at all. I don't like that story. I did not like that story.

Oh.

Erin Entrada Kelly: It's 100% true.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: That is why you're by yourself? Were you like, I'm not going back to that room?

Erin Entrada Kelly: No. I went back and I went to sleep.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You're like, honey, it's 2AM. I'm going back to bed. That's a wild story. Yes. Oh, of course you believe a ghost then.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: This is this is the time for you

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: to read from the telltale heart.

Erin Entrada Kelly: Okay. Yes. This is

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: it. I

Erin Entrada Kelly: was certain of it. They knew. Now it was they who were playing a game with me. See, earlier he was playing a game with the police saying, I didn't kill that man. I don't know who that man is.

But now he thinks they're playing a game with him. I was suffering more than I could bear from their smiles and from that sound. Louder, louder, louder. Suddenly, I could bear it no longer. I pointed at the boards and cried, yes.

Yes. I killed him. Pull up the boards, and you shall see I killed him. But why does his heart not stop beating? Why does it not stop?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Aaron read from the telltale heart by Edgar Allan Poe. First published in 1843, it's one of Poe's most enduring short stories, often cited as a defining example of Gothic horror. The story follows a man who insists on his sanity as he describes murdering an old man and hiding the body beneath the floorboards. When the police arrive, he's undone, not by evidence, but by the sound of the victim's heart still beating impossibly beneath his feet.

Erin Entrada Kelly: I can't remember when I first read it, but I had to have been, like, early middle school, like, pretty young. I was into scary stuff and horror at a very young age. And the thing that I loved about it was I love crime and punishment for the same reason. This concept of guilt that's so strong that you start hallucinating, you know, like the sound of the heart beating because you're so overwhelmed with guilt and just the creepiness of it. Because the other story that I loved by Poe was the black cat.

Not many people talk about this one as much, but he murders his wife and he buries her in the wall. And he's like breaking up the wall and he thinks he's like, you know, being really, really smart. But he doesn't know that his cat is in the wall and like jumped in there. So he walls up the cat. And when the police come to his house, they're like, where's your wife?

And, of course, he's acting like he doesn't know anything. But then they hear the police and the man as they're walking around in the basement, they hear

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: behind

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: the wall.

Erin Entrada Kelly: I'm doing remember, you're really doing the most here. But it's like muffled, you know?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You're an ASM artist.

Erin Entrada Kelly: That's what it is. I've been inspired. Meow. And so the police look at the wall and they look at the man and the man looks at the wall. Now he's freaking out because he realizes that he bricked his cat up.

Yes. So they start banging. They start knocking on the wall and the cat's meowing and they take down the frantically take down the bricks. And there is the cat sitting on his wife's shoulder And she's dead. Of course, her body's all gross and dead.

But the cat is alive and the cat's on the shoulder like,

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: meow. My daughter's reading the yellow wallpaper right now for school. She was reading I

Erin Entrada Kelly: love that.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. That's really yeah. It's taking me to that. She's like she's pretty young. She's eighth grade.

So I'm like, why are you guys reading the yellow wallpaper? But she's like reading it. I didn't even understand what's going oh, no. Now I know. She's like, oh, this is disgusting horror movie.

This is a horror story, mom.

Erin Entrada Kelly: But I also think that horror in general, whether it's ghosts or whatever it is, is fascinating for a lot of people, including me, because fear is like a heightened feeling of emotion. Right? It's like when I watch a scary movie, I want the maximum scare factor. Like, I want the room to be as dark as possible. I want it to be as quiet as possible.

I want to be as scared as possible. I will hide my eyes. So then it makes you wonder, like, do you why are you doing this? You know?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Like, you

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: don't want to see gore, but you want to see you want to have that fear. Okay. So why are you doing it to yourself?

Erin Entrada Kelly: Well, or sometimes I get so afraid of what's going to come like a jump scare that I'll cover my eyes. Okay. But it's that feeling of adrenaline that fear gives you that makes me love horror so much because the truth of the matter is you get to experience this adrenaline and this rush of fear and heightened emotion, but you're always safe. You're never in any actual danger. You get to experience heightened emotion in a very safe space.

And that's also true, by the way, of drama and crying and sad books and sad movies. You get to experience the heartbreak and the heartache safely. It's like

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: the beauty of books. Right? Absolutely. You also get to experience other people's experience.

Erin Entrada Kelly: One of my favorite things is when I go to a scary movie and something really scary happens and everyone in the theater screams and then immediately laughs. I love that feeling because it's like, we're all we're all united together. We all got the shit scared out of us, and now we're laughing at ourselves and each other. And I just love when that happens.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: What do you think is like this fascination? I think we all have a fascination with ghosts. You obviously do and are like, you know, bringing that into your your own writing now. Where do you think that fascination comes from? Where did it come from for you, I should say?

Erin Entrada Kelly: That's a great question. I think it's because we all want to know what happens to us after we die. Some of us think we know. Some of us are convinced that we know, but we really don't know. And I think that not knowing and that fascination and fear of our own mortality is part of the reason why we're so fascinated by ghosts.

And I think that, you know, in a lot of ways, we're desperate to believe that they exist because that means that something happens afterwards. Mhmm.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I think of, like, momentum brings us forward, ghosts kind of bring you back or feels like there could be like a I don't know, pull us back. And I wonder how you think about those two forces, you know, maybe in light of the last resort, but also just in life about these these differing forces of being here, but also, like, you know, thinking about the past or those who came before us, those types of things and sort of how those are interacting.

Erin Entrada Kelly: That's such an interesting concept. Okay. Momentum brings us forward, but ghosts bring us back. And how do those interact with each other? Here's what I think.

The concept of ghosts, especially ghosts from long ago, one reason why I find them fascinating is I love history and I love the past, it's kind of like, you know, a touchstone to something from before. But I wonder if one of the reasons why we're fascinated by ghosts is because it implies that we still have momentum after we die. Oh. Because if the ghost is existing in our current timeline, that means their momentum has not ended. Therefore, our momentum may not end.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: We may never know for sure about ghosts or what comes after or why some questions stay unanswered, but maybe what matters more is how we live with that uncertainty and how we make peace with what we can't fully understand.

Erin Entrada Kelly: One of the most freeing things as an adult, in my opinion, is realizing that two things can be true at once. Right? So I can be grateful and appreciative that I'm alive and that I'm in remission. But also I can be sad and frustrated and disappointed that I'm not the person I was before and that I'm still suffering. I do not adhere to the toxic positivity.

Look at the bright side. I'm like, well, can I look at the bright side, but also recognize that there's a dark side? Can't can't two things be true? And they can. And for me, there's a lot of power in knowing that many things can be true.

It doesn't have to be one or the other. I can suffer. And just because you know, I also grew up very in a very Catholic household. So, you know, you're always kinda taught like, well, be thankful for what you have and think about this person and that person. And the reality is I can think about this person and that person, and I can also feel sorrow for myself and things that I'm going through.

This this person, that person's suffering does not negate my suffering and vice versa. There's enough suffering to go around. This is a real uplifting podcast. I should be a motivational speaker.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Honestly, I would sign up for that

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: seminar y'all. Erin Entrada Kelly, motivational speaker in the making, the ghost believer on occasion, and absolute pro at keeping it real. Thank you. Thank you, Erin, for such a special conversation. And while we wait on her world tour, let's hear from this week's Feedstack featured librarian Kimberly Thompson, the library media specialist at Eastside Middle School in Bullock County, Kentucky.

After all that talk about being stuck in limbo and building momentum, Kimberly shares a story of one reader who has found his moe.

Kimberly Thompson: Few years ago, I had a kiddo who came in, named Nathan. And Nathan did not have a good feeling about reading. So I'd been working with him trying to find books that he might like. And we just realized after initial testing in sixth grade that his reading level was on second grade. And that was probably his main problem.

And a lot of the books I had in the library were just way, way too hard for him. And so I got a Dollar General grant, which shout out, librarians, teachers, if you need a grant, Dollar General is a great place to go. I ordered a lot of books that looked like middle school books, but were written at a second, third, fourth grade level. I put on the broadcast, always do that, you know, have new books, you can come down and check them out. And Aidan was the first one down there because he couldn't wait to tell me that those were not good books.

He came over to me and and he whispered, I need to talk to you. And I was, okay. And he pulled me over to the corner and he's like, I checked out those books. And I was like, yeah. What'd you think?

And he said, I can read them. And I said, I know. And he's like, no. I can read those books. And I said, I know.

And he's like, how many can I get? So he ran over and got his books. And from then on, he really helped me start picking out books that he wanted to read, those were the books that I would get, for him. And he was very impatient about how long it took to go through the process to order books for his school, but became such a great reader and moved up through his reading levels in middle school.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: This has been the reading culture, and you've been listening to my conversation with Aaron Entrada Kelly. Again, I'm your host, Jordan Lloyd Bookie, and currently, I'm reading The House Next Door by Ellen O and Tower of Dawn by Sarah j Maas. I am almost done with that series and really loving it. If you enjoyed today's episode, please show some love and give us a five star review or better yet, do a quick written review. It means so much, and it really helps this show get shared beyond our regular audience.

So thank you. Thank you so much for doing that. And to learn more about how you can help grow your community's reading culture, please check out all of our resources at beanstack.com, and remember to sign up for our newsletter at the readingculturepod.com forward slash newsletter for special offers and bonus content. This episode was produced by Mel Webb and Lower Street Media and script edited by Josiah Lamberto Egan. Thanks for listening, and keep reading.