[00:00:00] Brianna Cardiff Hicks: Share the stories that matter with the people who matter in your life. Make some fun memories learning this stuff because, yes, it doesn’t have to be boring. This is serious stuff, but we can do it in, hopefully, a fun, memorable way that we’re making memories with our children and preparing them for the future.

[music]

[00:00:27] Gretchen: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Demme Learning Show. I am so excited today to welcome Brianna Cardiff Hicks. The first time I met her, she was Lady Liberty, and she was walking through a convention hall, dressed elegantly, holding up the Lady Liberty’s torch. I thought, “Wow, that’s a commitment to craft, to walk around for that long with your arm in the air.” I thought, “She’s somebody I have to get to know.”

We have done that over the last couple of years in homeschool conferences. It’s taken me forever to chase her down and get her to come on this show because, man, she’s got some amazing things to talk to you about today. As a history nerd, I am delighted to welcome her to this conversation today. I’m going to turn this over to Brianna and let her tell you what an awesome person she is and why we’re having this conversation today.

[00:01:21] Brianna: Thank you so much, Gretchen. That was a fantastic introduction. I’m honored to be on this show and to get a chance to talk with you and all of you a little bit about myself as we get started. I’m both a homeschooling mom and a homeschooling graduate. I’ve had the benefit of getting to see homeschooling from both sides. Homeschooling, there’s a lot of similarities from when I was growing up and also some differences. It’s been fun to get to see how homeschooling has grown up.

[00:01:53] Gretchen: I think you’re one of the compatriots for my older children. One of the things I’m grateful for is that I homeschooled before the era of the ding of the cell phone because, to me, it’s a great way to be distracted.

[00:02:10] Brianna: Especially from grown-ups.

[00:02:10] Gretchen: We have to be more intentional today when we educate our kids at home.

[00:02:15] Brianna: No, definitely. There are so many more resources out there, too, which is great. Pros and cons.

[00:02:26] Gretchen: [laughs] I remember back in the day, some of my children might say when rocks were soft, you could put all of the homeschool resources in a 8 by 12 room. Now, you look at what’s available to us. We need a bit of discrimination to choose the things that are good. I think the things that you are doing are extraordinarily good. Tell me a little bit of your personal journey. What was it like to be a homeschool kid when you said you were on a field trip instead of disclosing that you were homeschooled back in the day?

[00:03:05] Brianna: One of the things that’s changed is, yes, sometimes when we’d go to the grocery store or whatever, and people would be like, “Why aren’t you in school?” My mom would say, “Oh, they’re homeschooled.” The reaction was very commonly, “What is that?”, all of those things. Now, when I’m with my kids, and someone asks, I say, “Oh, they’re homeschooled.” It’s more like, “Oh, I know someone who’s done that,” or “I’ve heard of that.” I think there is much more of awareness and acceptance.

[00:03:36] Gretchen: You know what I often hear is, “Oh, I could never do that. I don’t have the patience.” That assumes that we had the patience, and I did not. I did not have time to stand in the patient’s line in heaven. All of my children would attest to that. It was a raucous adventure, and I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

[00:03:55] Brianna: Definitely. I have three kids, and we love reading books together and just going on adventures together and experience things. There’s so much as a homeschooler that ends up being a field trip, whether my kids like it or not.

[00:04:12] Gretchen: Very true.

[00:04:13] Brianna: We, of course, love studying history together.

[00:04:17] Gretchen: Tell me a little bit about your own academic journey because you went off to college, and I think it would be great for our audience to know a little bit of your journey because it’s an impressive one.

[00:04:29] Brianna: Thank you. I was homeschooled from kindergarten all the way up through high school.

[00:04:34] Gretchen: I’m going to pause you for a second there. Why did your parents choose to home educate you?

[00:04:40] Brianna: That’s a great question. When I was probably four, they started looking around, trying to do their homework. I think they went and visited a Montessori school, and I think they had a relative who was teaching in public school, so they went in and sat on her classroom. There was impressive stuff going on in all of these places and also challenges. I think they looked around and said, “We can probably do things as well, if not better, and tailor it more.”

They also looked back and said, “In some sense, we’ve been homeschooling the whole time. You don’t send your kids somewhere to learn how to walk or talk. That’s just part of being around your parents, your family, and your development.” In some sense, it was a natural transition. They thought that they could do things as well, if not better, at home. I think one thing that homeschooling did was it made us a really close family. I’m still close to my siblings and parents.

[00:05:56] Gretchen: I get a big delight to see you with your parents at conferences every once in a while, and I think it’s really fun. Every once in a while, one of my children will accompany me to a conference. It’s a different kind of bond because you don’t have to re-establish a relationship when you come back in the door at the end of the day. That relationship remains. It’s a constant, which I think is really terrific. Then talk to me about, okay, you were homeschooled through high school, and you chose to go to college to a very rigorous school. Tell me about that.

[00:06:33] Brianna: I went to a public university for my undergrad. I think a lot of people were like, “Oh, what was that transition like?” Being away from my family was the biggest transition. As I said, that’s everybody. Whether you go to public school or wherever, that’s a big transition. In terms of the academic transition, it wasn’t that bad because as a homeschool high schooler, I was already working on my own schedule. I took a class at community college. I took an online class.

This was way back at the very beginning of online classes. We still had to drive somewhere to a fax machine to fax in my homework for online class. There was starting to be more options, but I had to manage that. Some things, my parents were still teaching me, or I was going different places. Then transitioning that to the college environment and managing my own schedule, and doing homework, and going to office hours, that, in some ways, was an easy, natural transition.

[00:07:45] Gretchen: How did you choose your college degree?

[00:07:47] Brianna: I had taken an economics class in high school that I enjoyed. I was surprised once I got to college; a requirement was to take a year of calculus at the college I attended. I discovered I loved math. It was a surprise. It was a surprise. Although, looking back on it, maybe it shouldn’t have been so much of a surprise. My parents both loved math, but in particular, my mom loved math. I think growing up with that role model probably influenced me more than I would have admitted in college. I was really lucky that my university actually offered a joint mathematics-economics degree. I got the best of both worlds.

[00:08:36] Gretchen: That’s a pretty rigorous degree. Did you always know from that point, even as a college student, did you think, “When I have children, I’m going to home educate them”?

[00:08:50] Brianna: I knew that that would be one of the options on the table. I also knew that homeschooling is a big commitment and a lot of work for the parents. I was going to say, “This sounds terrible,” but I was like, “Do I want to commit myself to that?” Because it’s not always easy.

[00:09:12] Gretchen: No. I will tell you that we homeschooled one year at a time. It just cumulatively ended up to be 21 years. If I had looked at the beginning and said, “Oh, we’re going to do this all the way through high school for multiple kids,” I’d have run screaming for the hills. [laughs]

[00:09:30] Brianna: Yes, I knew it was going to be one of the options I would consider, but I was not ready to just jump in and commit myself. On the flip side, being homeschooled myself, this is what I know. This is what I know. This is the model I have for raising children, for educating children. Now, it seems like it really shouldn’t have been that hard of a decision, but going into it, I was like, “I don’t know.”

[00:10:01] Gretchen: Your handsome husband, how did he feel when he met you? Was he familiar with homeschoolers, or was this a new world for him?

[00:10:09] Brianna: Somewhat, but he went through public education. His parents worked in education, but he was open and willing. I will reveal here that he and I are both such nerds. When we had kids, he said, “One of the things that I’m most looking forward to with having children is teaching them math.” Maybe it wasn’t as hard a transition for him either.

[00:10:34] Gretchen: I got to be honest, that sentence would never have crossed anybody’s lips in my house. I recognize I work for a math company, but I think math is spelled with four letters for a reason. I think it’s just amazing that he would have that point of view.

[00:10:50] Brianna: Yes. I’m very blessed. I do appreciate him and what he brings to it.

[00:10:56] Gretchen: Now tell us about the Evolution of the American History Education Project because this is so cool, what you all are doing.

[00:11:07] Brianna: In some sense, it is a true multi-generational homeschool project.

[00:11:15] Gretchen: [laughs] Now, come on. It’s very sophisticated what you all are doing.

[00:11:20] Brianna: Thank you. Thank you.

[00:11:21] Gretchen: [crosstalk] Sometimes when you say homeschool project, I’m thinking paste and cardboard, and that’s not this.

[00:11:30] Brianna: Several years ago, when kids were younger, I think there’s definitely been movements recently that have not looked as favorably on the United States as a country on our history. There’s definitely some different narratives. I think a lot of young people today are a little bit more uncertain about whether they should be proud to be an American or, frankly, embarrassed to be an American. We’re thinking about how do we approach this.

How do we teach our own children some of these very important founding principles of America and some of the character traits and values that made this a great place to live? In particular, I had very young children at the time. We were looking at the really young ages. We found that although there are some wonderful curriculums for slightly older children that shared some of our values, there was not a lot for the young children.

We reached out to some other experienced homeschooling families, got some advice. We thought about curriculums that we had really loved and appreciated. Then we just dove in creating our own. As we did this process, it struck us that other families might be able to benefit from this as well. We were blessed with a small grant which got our website up and running, so it doesn’t look like paste and tape. We turned it into a nonprofit. That was the birth of the American History Education Project.

[00:13:21] Gretchen: What you have done that is, I think, a little bit unique in this space is you’re educating children about history but through story. That is different because story is memorable.

[00:13:36] Brianna: Yes. I think history has, for whatever reason, a bad reputation of being a very dry, very boring subject.

[00:13:47] Gretchen: Because all of us at some point have encountered a history instructor who was better than Sominex at putting you to sleep.

[00:13:56] Brianna: I think too much of history has been focused on, “Remember these names and these dates.” I think it’s somewhat ironic because in some ways history should be the easiest subject to teach because what is it? It’s stories. It’s not just stories. These are the greatest hits that have lasted the test of time, the greatest successes and failures of the human race. For whatever reason, as human beings, we are wired to appreciate a good story. There are some wonderful textbooks out there.

I think, unfortunately, a lot of history textbooks have sucked some of the life out of it. A lot of times, textbooks aren’t written by one author who has a coherent story that they want to tell you. I think that can make things choppy and less enjoyable. Yes, we have reviewed probably hundreds of picture books to try and find the good ones that have a great story, that have great pictures, that have the right values, that are also age-appropriate, because again, we were aiming for a younger crowd.

[00:15:13] Gretchen: When you say aiming for a younger crowd, what was your target?

[00:15:17] Brianna: Our original target was ages three to, say, nine. We bumped that up to around 12 just because we’ve had people use our curriculum in co-ops and other settings where they’re like, “Oh, yes, our 12-year-olds love this.” Introducing events in history, people in history, through these amazing, beautiful stories do make it so much more memorable and inviting. Then the other thing that we’ve done is then we try to pair these stories with hands-on interactive activities directly related to them to then make the stories come to life. Now history isn’t something that we just read about. It’s something that we hear, smell, taste, experience together as a family.

[00:16:03] Gretchen: That becomes memorable as far as being able to– I’m remembering back to one of my children was tasked one year in the Calvert curriculum, you have to read Johnny Tremain. Nothing was going to do, but he wanted to understand what a hoe cake tasted like. That required a trip to the library, back in the day when there was a card catalog, because I had no idea.

We found a book of recipes that we could actually pull that recipe and make them. I still remember him because I made him make them. I got out all the ingredients. I measured the ingredients. I said, “Okay, Lucas, go for it.” When we were done, he said, “Either I’m a terrible cook, or these people were just really dedicated,” because I can’t imagine wanting to stay on the battlefield after he ate this stuff.

[00:17:05] Brianna: What I like to say is historic recipes aren’t always delicious, but they are always memorable.

[00:17:12] Gretchen: [laughs] Very. Very. I was laughing because we were rearranging bookcases in my house this past weekend for a construction project that’s about to happen, and one of them on the bookshelf was the Laura Ingalls Wilder cookbook. Some of those recipes, there are notes in the margin of some of my kid’s handwriting of “This was awful.” [laughs] We did it. That’s what made it memorable.

[00:17:45] Brianna: We always try to have cooking. We have arts and crafts. We have science experiments. We always try–

[00:17:51] Gretchen: I read that yesterday on your website. Tell me how you’re incorporating science because I think this is fascinating.

[00:17:59] Brianna: Obviously, it depends on the story. For example, studying the Declaration of Independence. We will cut our own quill pen, and then we can talk about capillary action. That’s how these pens worked, which is crazy that they sucked the ink up into the feather, and then you could write with it. That was the connection there. Wright brothers obviously lends itself to a ton of science, and we’re talking about lift and drag and all the experiments.

We made a mini wind tunnel because they had a mini wind tunnel. I think some of these stories, certainly, there is a more easy connection than others. There’s always something to, again, make it more memorable by adding that extra piece. Let’s see, the Constitution and checks and balances, we made scales.

[00:19:06] Gretchen: How do you decide a book is worthy to become part of the project’s curricula?

[00:19:12] Brianna: We either find one or we find a recommendation from someone. I’ll read it, or I’ll read it to my kids. My parents will read it. We will check to see if it is readily available. Does our library carry it? Can you get it on Amazon easily, or is this a book that’s out of print and maybe you can get it from a used bookstore? There are some fantastic books that you just can’t really get a hold of easily. We try and, sadly, stay away from those. Then we read it.

We’re looking at the story. We’re looking at the message that the story is giving, because I said we’re focused on these traditional American values: In God We Trust, E Pluribus Unum, Liberty and Justice for All, self-reliance, work ethic. Are they consistent with those values? We look at the content, especially with history; there are some really, really hard subjects, war, discrimination, disease, you name it. Our kids need to know about these things, but they need to be introduced gently to some-

[00:20:32] Gretchen: Sure.

[00:20:32] Brianna: -of them. Also, looking at content, see if this is a story that we would like to read, not just once, but over and over again. Because as a parent, if I don’t want to read it over and over again, it’s maybe not the best.

[00:20:48] Gretchen: Sure, absolutely. Tell me a little bit about how you all choose to handle subjects that some parents may consider difficult to discuss with their children? Because I like the fact that you’re willing to go there, but you go there gently and gracefully, which I think is really neat.

[00:21:18] Brianna: Part of why we homeschool is homeschooling parent, you know your child best and you know what content that they’re ready for. Obviously, a lot of this is just up to parental discretion. For things like war, sometimes we’re able to come at it from the side. The book that we have that talks about World War I, it’s from the perspective of one of the telephone operators.

[00:21:49] Gretchen: Which I thought is fascinating. I think that’s a really interesting– I have to admit that until I took a look at that book, I don’t think I connected the dots that that was–

[00:22:03] Brianna: I have learned so much from reading these books myself.

[00:22:07] Gretchen: [laughs] I didn’t connect the dot. I was like, “Oh, yes, okay.” Logically, that would make sense. Emotionally, in my head, World War I preceded that kind of communication.

[00:22:19] Brianna: It was at the beginning of that. We get the perspective of the telephone operators. Although they have gas masks on the backs of all their seats, so they’re in the illustrations, they don’t really talk about it that much. If you’re a parent and you want to go into it, you can point it out and have a discussion. If you don’t, you don’t have to.

[00:22:42] Gretchen: Sure.

[00:22:42] Brianna: The telephone operators, obviously, are calling people who are in the trenches. There’s a couple illustrations of people in the trenches. Again, it’s not super graphic, not super gory. That’s not so much the focus.

[00:22:55] Gretchen: [crosstalk] Because you’re making sure that you’re sticking to your target audience, age-wise as well.

[00:23:01] Brianna: Yes. We cover that war. Again, it’s a great opening. If your child is ready to go deeper, you are welcome to do that. If not, then your child does have some information about World War I. As they get older, they will then have a framework to slot in additional information as they’re more ready for that.

[00:23:25] Gretchen: Sure. That makes sense. There was one of the books that I really wanted you to tell me a little bit more about, which was, and I’m going to quote it wrongly here, it has to do with Lady Liberty’s foot. [laughs]

[00:23:42] Brianna: Her right foot.

[00:23:43] Gretchen: Her right foot, yes. Tell me a little bit about that. Then I’ll explain why I’m so fascinated.

[00:23:51] Brianna: As you alluded to, I’m a big fan of Lady Liberty. I have learned a lot about her in order to be more authentic as I am talking to people at conferences. Her right foot focuses on the fact that Lady Liberty’s right foot is sculpted mid-stride. Her heel is up. She is not standing in place. She is actually walking forward. I think the idea here, again, going back to the values, liberty isn’t stationary. Liberty is on the move. It takes effort to spread liberty. That book highlights her right foot. Obviously, it tells other things about Lady Liberty, but shows liberty’s on the move.

[00:24:43] Gretchen: That was one book in your collection that I was unfamiliar with when I was doing a little bit of research last week, and I got a kick out of it. My father was actually a German immigrant who came through the island in 1927. When my middle daughter was 16, nothing would do, but she wanted a trip to New York City for her birthday.

The irony of it was I was excited because I thought I was finally going to get to see the manifest my father signed when he came into the United States, only to get to Staten Island and discover that all those manifests happened to be in Silver Spring, Maryland, 20 miles from the house we were living in, not in New York City at that time. [laughs] What has surprised you most about this journey about bringing this history project to children?

[00:25:47] Brianna: Possibly how much fun it has been. Sounds silly. I was putting together a presentation for a conference a while ago. I was trying to pull some pictures to make the slides more interesting. As I was going through those, I was like, “Oh, this was so much fun when we did this.” I was like, “Oh, that’s a wonderful memory. Oh, I forgot we did that.” It was just fun to go back and look at this stuff. Some of these activities my kids ask to do over and over again. We get to do, “Oh, the cousins are coming over, let’s do a history reenactment with them.” Then it’s something we get to share as a family or even with other homeschooling friends: invite people over for a play.

One of our favorites: we were studying the Transcontinental Railroad. We converted our basement into a mini model of the train and invited another family over with a ton of BRIO train tracks. They brought theirs; we had ours. Then they built from the east, and we built from the west. We built our own mini Transcontinental Railroad with battery-operated trains. We had this big party when we finally completed our track. I remember arguing with my son who had more fun, the kids or the parents. He thought the kids, and I thought the parents.

[00:27:15] Gretchen: What was the point of view your son was arguing, that the kids were having more fun?

[00:27:19] Brianna: Yes, they were having more fun. I was like, “I don’t know.” Just getting able to share these things and make these fun memories together, or some of the crazy historic recipes that either we were surprised that they tasted so good or yes, I think, my son had a similar experience that some of the things they ate during war were not great.

[00:27:42] Gretchen: My husband’s ex-military, and I’m here to tell you that meals ready to eat are awful, but that’s neither here nor there. Tell me what you think, intrinsically, your children are getting from this. Because I would submit in that situation, the parents had more fun because the kids were just in the moment, but you were watching the kids in the moment. That makes it multi-generational. What’s your perception? How do you think that this is changing their perception of the world around them?

[00:28:22] Brianna: For one thing, I think they have a really good outline or template, a overall view of some of the key events of American history. I think as they progress, they will then be able to slot in more information or make the connections. I think trying to make it memorable. Sometimes the first time around, we don’t necessarily remember all of the dates and the names, but they do remember the experiences, and then I have something to refer them back to.

“Oh, now we’re in a museum seeing this. Remember the time we did this activity?” “Oh, yes, I do remember that.” “That was actually about this thing that you are now seeing.” “Oh.” Giving them the framework to build on and build those connections is something I certainly hope that they’re getting out of this.

[00:29:21] Gretchen: As you expand the offerings in the American History Education Project, are you going to stay with your target age, or you all expand– I’m sure that I have touched the third rail of debate with you all now. Curiosity says, where does this go five years from now?

[00:29:44] Brianna: I think for now, we’re still with our main target audience. I think a lot of these techniques you can really use at any age. Obviously, you have to level up a little bit for the older students as they’re able to handle more sophisticated books, as they’re able to do more of these sorts of hands-on activities on their own. I think it can be a natural progression. Because stepping back to what you were saying, what am I hoping my kids get out of this, I think the other thing that I’ve been struck with is in trying to build their characters.

In history, again, we get examples of the best of the best of humanity and the worst of the worst. One thing I appreciate about so many of these stories, they’re based on actual people. If someone’s wondering, could someone ever actually be that self-sacrificing or that generous? Someone actually was. We’re able to, especially at young ages, engage our kids’ imaginations, and they end up maybe inadvertently trying on some of these characteristics for themselves.

A while back, we went to George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Then later on, I heard my kids setting up their next imaginary game. It’s like, “Okay, I’m going to be George Washington and the rebels, and you guys are going to be the redcoats.” They’re incorporating this into their play, and I’m hoping getting to practice some of– Being brave, of standing up for what’s right.

[00:31:33] Gretchen: A couple of years ago, my husband and I were at the Hermitage in Tennessee. It was funny because I was arguing with some of the plaques because the information contained on some of those plaques was not the information my kids had learned when we had studied that era when they were growing up. How do you verify the veracity of the timeline that you’re looking at? I recognize that I’m– Because there’s a lot of things that are in flux right now as far as American history is concerned. How do we know we’re looking at truth?

[00:32:18] Brianna: That’s a great question, and that’s a hard question. There have definitely been books that were like, “Oh, this is a great book. This sounds great.” Then we’ve actually done just a teeny tiny bit of fact-checking research and been like, “Oh, this never actually happened, or there’s no actual evidence that this happened. It’s a great story, but it’s just a story.” That’s not going to work. [laughs] I think for either older students or parents, I always recommend going to primary sources.

[00:32:58] Gretchen: Tell us a little bit about that because we may have some parents in the audience who are going, “Primary sources? What does that mean?” I know what that means. You know what that means, but let’s define that for our audience, how they can figure that out.

[00:33:13] Brianna: Sure. Primary sources would be materials that were written during that time period. I guess I would say in terms of what is absolute truth, all people have their own biases, including people writing in those eras. Even when we’re looking at a primary source, we are getting the information from that individual looking at the events at that time from their own lens. That’s at least helpful for us.

This is someone who lived during this time, writing about events potentially that they were eyewitnesses to or that impacted them personally. Also, famous or important documents of the time would also be primary sources. Reading the Declaration of Independence would be a primary source, as opposed to reading a book about the Declaration of Independence is not.

[00:34:07] Gretchen: Tell us a little bit about, do you ever have the opportunity to guide parents when they’re doing an internet search? Because I think, particularly in the age of the changing of the internet of late, you can’t always trust the first thing that pops up anymore. You’ve got to be able to recognize what that would be as far as a primary source is.

[00:34:33] Brianna: That’s true. I have not done a ton of guiding parents through the internet. A lot of this, at this point, we have to use our best judgment. We have to see what sources the internet is pulling from. Is this just some random person who’s sharing their opinion? Is this from something credible? Is this a document from Library of Congress that we can track back? There is discernment required.

[00:35:08] Gretchen: [laughs] I love the fact that you said it that way. That’s a very diplomatic way to say that; yes, we do need to just not take everything at face value.

[00:35:18] Brianna: That’s right. I think trying to teach history is hopefully one way that we can help prepare our children to make good decisions in the future. Looking ahead, I think the world is very different than it was when I was growing up. Who knows what the next generation is going to be called upon to decide? I think understanding what decisions were made in the past and why they were made, the context they were made, the outcome of those decisions hopefully will help guide the next generation in the decisions that they will face.

[00:35:59] Gretchen: Being the daughter of a German immigrant whose accent was as thick the day he died as the day he got off the boat, he used to say, “You must study very carefully because this country was built on ideas, and the ideas must be very carefully considered.” I can still hear him sitting at my kitchen table, my little round-

[00:36:21] Brianna: Wise words.

[00:36:22] Gretchen: -maple kitchen table. Yes, these ideas must be considered very carefully. In these last few minutes, what closing words would you have for our audience?

[00:36:34] Brianna: Thank you for listening. I guess I would also just encourage you to share the stories that matter with the people who matter in your life.

[00:36:47] Gretchen: Oh, I love that.

[00:36:49] Brianna: Make some fun memories learning this stuff because, yes, it doesn’t have to be boring. This is serious stuff, but we can do it in hopefully a fun, memorable way that we’re making memories with our children and preparing them for the future.

[00:37:07] Gretchen: You know what? This has been a wonderful walk down memory lane for me to remember some of the great things that we did with my kids when we were home educating them. You know what? The important takeaway here is wherever your children are educated, you’re still home educating them because they’re learning those values at your table and while they stand next to you. That’s huge. I want to thank you so much for taking this time out of the middle of your academic day. Your kids had to go hang with your mom so you could spend this time with me. I want you to know how grateful I am. I just really truly appreciate it.

[00:37:48] Brianna: [crosstalk] My pleasure. My pleasure.

[00:37:49] Gretchen: I want to thank our audience for joining us today. I really appreciate you all for trusting us to come into your living room because this has been a very special pleasure. I have waited since we talked in June about doing this to have this conversation. You need to go to a homeschool conference, and you need to see these beautiful, beautiful books that they have incorporated as part of this project because they’re breathtaking.

They’re the kind of books that I don’t care where your kids are being educated; they should be part of your family’s library. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. I think you found it to be wonderful. I know I have, and I certainly appreciate all of you for spending the time here with us today.

[music]