How Jedlie Took His Books From the Stage to Page to Make "Real Magic"

Listen to today's episode, "How Jedlie Took His Books From the Stage to Page to Make "Real Magic” as Jed Doughtery a.k.a. "Jedlie" the host of the "Reading with Your Kids" podcast and Educational Magician shares how his time performing on stage led to his creation of his kids' book "Real Magic." In this episode hear:

* How his background led to writing
* How his stage experiences led to his book "muse"
* A reading of his book, "Real Magic"
* What he has learned in his own podcast
* How kids' books can create empathy
* 2 reasons experts should have their own kids' book

Did you love this episode? Discover more here:
https://thepowerofkidsbooks.buzzsprout.com

More about Jedlie:
Jedlie is one of the nation’s most exciting school show performers. He uses positive reinforcement, storytelling, illusions, comedy, music and dance to motivate audiences to make healthy choices, build safe schools, stand up for one another and to be inclusive.

Jedlie left a successful career in social work to become a professional clown and magician. Since that time he has brought a magical message of caring and community to millions of hearts throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.
In 2017 Jedlie launched the Reading With Your Kids Podcast to help all families grow closer through reading. Since that time he has published over 1650 interviews with some of the top authors in Kidlit and has been nominated for the iHeartRadio Best Kids and Family Podcast Award.

One of his most memorable accomplishments was serving as the Producer, Screenwriter and Featured Performer in “MELTDOWN!!! (The Walls That Separate)”. This internationally acclaimed disabilities awareness video was cablecast nationally and seen in classrooms around the World.

Buy his book:
https://amzn.to/3XHPvT5

Follow Jed:
www.readingwithyourkids.com
http://instagram.com/readingwithyourkids
http://twitter.com/jedliemagic

More about Dori Durbin:
Dori Durbin is a Christian wife, mom, author, illustrator, and a kids’ book coach who after experiencing a life-changing illness, quickly switched gears to follow her dream. She creates kids’ books to provide a fun and safe passageway for kids and parents to dig deeper and experience empowered lives. Dori also coaches non-fiction authors and aspiring authors to “kid-size” their content into informational and engaging kids’ books!

Buy Dori's Kids' Books:
https://www.amazon.com/author/doridurbin

Follow Dori
http://instagram.com/dori_durbin
http://www.doridurbin.com
http://www.facebook.com/doridurbinbooks
email: hello@doridurbin.com

Transcript

[00:00:03.250] - Dori Durbin
Hello and welcome to The Power of Kids Books Podcast, where we believe kids books are a catalyst for empowering and inspiring change. I'm your host, Dori Durbin. And today we have Jed Lee. And Jed is the host of the Reading With Your Kids podcast as well as an educational magician. We'll get more into that because I have lots the questions, but welcome, Jed.

[00:00:28.250] - Jedlie
Hey, Dori. How are you? So happy to be here. Thanks for having me on.

[00:00:32.270] - Dori Durbin
I am thrilled to have you on. So we were just chatting right before, and if you Google your name on Amazon, you have a string of information basically varying from music podcast or music cast to books. And then when I read about your educational magician piece of that, I was super curious. So tell me how this all fits together, if you don't mind.

[00:01:01.810] - Jedlie
I don't know if it actually all fits together, but we'll give it a shot. I started performing as a clan and magician 35 years ago. My full time job since the pandemic kind of put a crimp in the live stuff. But for the most part, I've made my living for the past 35 years as a professional clan and magician, presenting shows primarily in schools, also in churches, libraries, at different public events. It's been an incredible ride. I've had so many wonderful experiences, met so many amazing people. The music end of it. When I started performing, the thought was that I would kind of have a rap master, Jedly persona. And so we created some educational rap songs. I should probably use air quotes, but they were a lot of fun. And when you're up and you're trying to get 500, 600 kids to talk about making healthy choices or to stand up and make their school bully free, it's kind of a fun way to wrap up the whole message of the show, to have that final kind of rap enchant along kind of song. So that's the music component of it, the books. When I started The Reading with Your Kids podcast back in 2017, it was I immediately fell in love with the kid lit community.

[00:02:40.390] - Jedlie
The  people, the people I met, the authors, the illustrators, the publishers are such wonderful people. And I've been telling stories on stage through my magic for 35 years. And one author who has become a friend, jeffrey McSkimming, over in Australia, he writes the Phyllis Wong Mysteries middle grade series. His beautiful wife is known as the First Lady of magic in Australia. And so she was familiar with my magic. And he said to me, you're already writing kids books, except you're presenting them on stage through magic. He said, we live in a time right now where you can self publish and it's really easy and it doesn't take a lot of investment. You don't have to go out and order 10,000 books. You can create a book and put it up on Amazon, have it on Kindle and it can be print on demand. And so I thought, what the heck? And that's what I did. And primarily I created those books as a back of the house item, something that people can buy at the end of my shows. If it's a family show, they can go back there and pick up a book and get an autograph and take a picture and that kind of thing.

[00:03:58.690] - Dori Durbin
I think that's great. And he's right. You were literally writing children's books every time you're up on stage, probably, right?

[00:04:07.470] - Jedlie
I had never thought of it like that because everything that I'm doing on stage is there's a lot of improvisation. I have a beginning, I know where I want to end. Everything in the middle kind of happens depending on who I bring up on stage. And so it's a lot of fun. A lot of the stories that I told. In fact, the first Tunnels book I wrote, The Great Maritini, the seed for that story, was born on stage. We're performing for a church group, a group of college kids, and my daughter was in the third grade at the time and she was performing with me. And we brought this college kid up on stage and talk about being moved by the Holy Spirit and being inspired from above. I just started telling this story and my daughter is on stage with me and we're acting it out with this kid and my daughter just doesn't stage whisper and says, bobby, what's going on? This ain't in the show. Just trust me. That story, that initial telling of the story was a lot of fun. And then we took it home and polished it and used it in the show for years and then turned it into a kids book with the help of my incredibly talented niece.

[00:05:33.610] - Dori Durbin
That's awesome. I think when you're in the moment with kids especially, things come to your mind that you wish you could write down. And the fact that you held onto that and were able to, between the two of you, re put it together, it must have been very powerful.

00:05:51.150] - Jedlie
It was. And you're right. There's a lot of times when you do something on stage and then you go back and you thought, okay, what was that? It got a huge laugh. I can't remember what it was. And you're pulling your hair out and you can't go back to the people who are in the audience and say, what was it that I said? What was it that I did? Because they see something completely different. I've had kids talk about I do a Levitation illusion in my show and if you ask a kid what they saw afterwards, they talk about their friend who was flying all around the room, which doesn't happen, but I like that they thought it happened.

[00:06:37.950] - Dori Durbin
So obviously it was effective one way or another. For sure, to write that perspective, the perspective of what's going on on stage. I feel like that with books, too. The perspective of what kids are actually getting out of the books can be quite a bit different than what the author thinks they're going to get out of the books.

[00:06:58.470] - Jedlie
Exactly. And that's one of the things we've talked about on the podcast, because that the podcast is reading with your kids. We're talking to adults and introducing adults to authors of great books that they may want to add to their family library. And one of the things I often ask an author is, what kind of conversations do you think families can have? And a number of authors have shared over the years. Well, I always thought that families would talk about X, but I hear back from families and actually they're talking about Y and Z and A and B and things that I never would have thought of.

[00:07:34.920] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, I think that's really an interesting piece that people don't maybe think about with kids books is I think that closeness with parents allows this safety and this opportunity for the kids to be able to just kind of talk off cuff. They can just talk freely without worrying about whether or not it applies. It just kind of opens that door up. Do you agree?

[00:07:59.370] - Jedlie
Oh, yeah. That's one of the huge topics that we discussed in the show is it is so much easier to talk about, to have the talk, those important conversations we have to have with our kids. It's so much easier talking about those subjects by talking about a character in a book or a story that had to deal with that situation than it is to sit down with a kid and say, no, have you been bullied at school? You must make healthy choices, that kind of thing. Sitting down and talking about characters in their situations and how your child would have dealt with it differently. It's so much easier for the kids. They're not concerned, they don't have the defenses up. They don't have to worry about, am I saying the right thing? Am I going to get in trouble? It's just no, let's just chat about what this character did in the book.

[00:08:58.830] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, that's so true. It does take a lot of that pressure off of the kid and that guilt and potential being in trouble, for sure. Actually, before we get too far, I do want you to share the story behind the book that you're going to share today, because I think that whole perception of what books are doing, we just don't always know. We don't always know what those connections are going to make. And you have a really cool story about that. Do you mind sharing that?

[00:09:28.150] - Jedlie
Sure. I created a book. My second book is called Real Magic, and it tells a story of something that actually happened to me on stage. It was about 30 years ago, because right before my son was born, I was in Union City, New Jersey, which is a small, geographically small community right across from New York City. But it's jampacked with people. It's 1 sq. Mi in size, but there's like 85, 90,000 people squeezed into that space. And it's a huge Latino population, folks, especially from Colombia and Central America. And I've had the pleasure of performing in all of the schools down there. And the schools are huge. 1800 kids can be at a performance and you have no idea how much fun it is and how the energy just takes you when you're in front of 1800 kids and you get them laughing, and then at the end you get them singing Adobe Rap Song. It's almost intoxicating. And one of the things I love about my show is that it is interactive. I have kids up on stage and they become the stars of the show. So in this one particular school, there was a girl in the audience and she was waving her hand.

[00:10:59.570] - Jedlie
She wanted to come up on stage. And when I pointed her and asked her to come up, I noticed the teachers kind of went they were shocked and worried. And that's usually a good thing because those animated kids are usually a lot of fun. But when I brought this student up on stage and I said, hey, what's your name? And I got nothing. And I thought, no worries. This is a big Latin community. Let me say it in Spanish. Komosayama. Still nothing. And I thought, well and I said to the audience, I think my friend might be a little nervous. Can you all make her feel welcome? Give her a big round of applause. And they did. And again, when you hear 1800 kids applauding for you, it's it's amazing. And when the when the applause died down, I heard Miyama it's Maria. I said Maria. Gracias. And I tried to speak to Maria in Spanish and then speak to the audience in English, but I'm not fluent. And I got confused on occasion. And I would speak to her in English and speak to the audience in Spanish. And I started to notice that she would answer me in whatever language I addressed her in.

[00:12:10.970] - Jedlie
So she was bilingual. And so we did the trick and it was just a little trick and it was fun and it was successful. And the kids cheered and she went back to her seat. And I didn't think anything of it until after the show when her teacher came back into the auditorium.

[00:13:13.090] - Jedlie (reads)
And so when her teacher came back and let me read from the book after the performance, all the kids leave the auditorium with happy faces and excited voices. But I noticed Maria walking towards the stage with her teacher. Hey, Maria. Maria is smiling, but her teacher is crying. Why are you crying? I asked gently. You probably have no idea. Her teacher tells me Maria has autism. She's been in our school for two years. During that time, she hasn't said one word to anybody in any language. How did you make her talk? I didn't make Maria speak. I tell her Maria decided to let us know that she could speak because all of you made her feel welcome. You made her feel part of your school family. Maria's teacher smiles at me, and I smile back. After all, when we help somebody feel loved, we help them do incredible, magical things. Imagine how wonderful life can be. Life can be magical if you choose to make everyone you meet feel respected, cared for, included and loved. And that's the secret. That's real magic.

[00:14:33.850] - Dori Durbin
I love it. I love it. By any chance, has Maria seen this book or her teacher?

[00:14:43.550] - Jedlie
She hasn't. This book was written probably 25 years after I've thought about that, and there have been a number of kids there have been a number of kids who've reached out to me and have stayed connected with me on social media. But there's also a lot of magical encounter with and I kind of let the universe rule. Whether that if a kid wants to be in touch and they can reach out, great. I don't know if social media was a thing back when Maria and I met.

[00:15:22.730] - Dori Durbin
Yeah. I'm just curious because I think that's such an inspiring story, and even for the teacher to know that that was created, it would be really interesting to see where they both are now, like how that story could have impacted them. Not that your story now impacted, but the event impacted both of their lives. That would be really interesting to find out.

[00:15:47.570] - Jedlie
It really it would be. It would be. And unfortunately, most most of my contacts in Union City have retired. I call up Nanaga, hey, this is Jedi. And they go, who are you? And I'm like, I wasn't for a while there.

[00:16:04.700] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, that would be difficult, for sure. Hey, can I ask you too so you've had impact with your books, you've had impact on the stage. Tell me about your podcast and what you've seen because of having your podcast.

[00:16:22.030] - Jedlie
The podcast has been such a blessing in so many ways. First, I am sure that if I didn't have the podcast during the pandemic, I would have driven my wife crazy and she would have thrown me out of the house. After those first two weeks happened and we found that we weren't going back to normal, I'm sure my beautiful wife would have just said, go. But having the podcast gives me a reason to come down here to the studio and talk because I love to talk. I've met so many amazing people, developed so many fantastic friendships, have had the opportunity to speak to people that I never would have had an opportunity to speak to before. I mean, childhood heroes like LaVar Burton, somebody that I've watched first in Roots and then was a huge fan of in Star Trek The Next Generation, and my kids loved him. In Reading Rainbow, we had a conversation for 45 minutes and he was such a gentleman and such an amazing guest. I recently had a chance to speak with Dr. Sylvia Earl, who is the leading oceanographer, somebody who Fabian Cousteau looks up to and is an aura and would love to spend time with, but I get to hang out with her for half an hour and just see the world, see her world through her eyes.

Great authors like you, you've been on the show and it's just been so much fun. And we're hoping, and I'm hearing from parents that we're inspiring more families to read together, spend some more time together. I had a really neat experience out in Chicago at the Chicago Toy and Game Fair right before the pandemic hit, and this Lovely Family. I had a number of books on display from authors that have been on the show. And this lovely family came by and there was a three and a five year old and a six year old and a twelve year old. And so the little kids are all looking at the books and the twelve year old is kind of bored. And I just turned to her and said, what kind of books do you love to read? And she goes, I hate reading. I said, really? I bet you just haven't found the perfect book. And I turned and there was this one book by one of our guest, Steven Joseph, the Last Surviving Dinosaur, the Crankosaurus. And I said, what? Just read this book. And it's filled with these really goofy words like crankosaurus and some Yiddish and great, great illustrations, and she was reading it and she was laughing and having fun, and I was just able to turn her and say, look, you had fun, you love reading.

You're not reading the right books. And she smiled and she promised me that she would try to find some books that she liked. And her parents were beaming because I think it was the first time that they saw her, their kid really engaged with reading and and hopefully there's been a lot of those, those kind of moments.

[00:19:40.900] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, yeah, that's great that you, you found a book that quickly to talk about divine intervention, having one right there for her. But I think you're right. I think especially now with so much focus on social media, so much technology focus, that art of just sitting down with something in your hands that turns and you can feel the pages that's kind of gone away for a lot of kids, unfortunately.

[00:20:08.550] - Jedlie
Yeah, it really has. I mean, in some ways in terms of adult books, it's gone away from me because I'm a huge fan of my Kindle and of audio books. And the fact that I can get on a plane with my Kindle that has 30 books in it is just great. And it's much more easier to read at the gym than dealing with those paperbacks when I'm sweating on the pages and you can't turn but you are missing something without that physical book in your hand.

[00:20:45.400] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, I think just having that I had an author on one day and she was talking about having a book. She said it was a golden book, little golden books. And it had this heavier paper, it had a certain smell when she held it, it had this weight and so it was like this very tactile experience that she had that was a memory for her. And I thought that's so cool. You forget about some of the actual physical feelings that you have when you lay on your stomach for 3 hours to read or whatever the case may be. Those are all those memories and experiences that go beyond just even reading.

[00:21:24.350] - Jedlie
Yeah, and certainly, again, my kids are older now, they're 27 and 29. I think the experience of reading a physical picture book with your kids so you have your arms around the kids and you can't really hope so they have to help hold it. That's something you lose with a Kindle or another device.

[00:21:50.190] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, you're right. And they're always kind of wanting to go to the next page or linger on a page. Like even that sense of timing, I think with a lot of the electronic devices, it wants you to go ahead and rush through. Whereas books, I feel like you take your time, you look at the pictures, you spend more time with it on your podcast. I know one of the things that we talked about too was not just the physical part of reading or the emotional part of reading, but even just what have you seen as far as developmentally that reading has helped kids with?

[00:22:30.850] - Jedlie
Well, I've been amazed. When I started the podcast, I started it because I knew that the conversations I was having with my adult kids started when they were on my lap when they were little, reading books together. That the relationship that I have with them now and the relationship I have with their spouses, I think too started with those books sitting down and looking at the pages and talking about them. So I started the podcast to encourage families to read together for that bond, for that closeness. But I've been learning that there are so many other benefits. A kid who is read to every day, 20 minutes a day, such a small investment for a parent to read with their kids every day for 20 minutes, that kid, when that kid gets to school, he or she would have heard over 800,000 more words than their peers who weren't read to. And that gap isn't going to close. And it's unfortunate because I feel really badly for the kids who weren't read to, but that is an advantage that your kids are going to carry through. There are statistics that show that having as few as 20 books in your family library can greatly increase your kid's likelihood of going to university.

[00:24:01.490] - Jedlie
I recently saw a study that kids who are read to make more money when they're adults, and initially I'm thinking, oh, yeah, because they hear all the words and they read more and they're smarter and it's like, no, they have more empathy. They're better team players. And that's what employers want. They want somebody who can work on a team. I've had leaders of business, captains of industry tell me I can teach anybody how to do a job here. They don't need to have a degree. It's nice if they do, but I can teach anybody how to do the job. I can't teach them how to get them along with others. And that's what I need more than anything.

[00:24:42.530] - Dori Durbin
That's interesting. You wouldn't think that that would be a result of reading, but that makes a lot of sense.

[00:24:48.610] - Jedlie
It does. That sense of empathy that you develop, an empathy for the characters you get to see. Unlike with a lot of media, like when you go to a movie, you have to tell a story in 90 minutes and it's flash, flash, flash. And you have to have enough time for the special effects and the monsters and everything. You don't get to see a full character. You kind of get to see Caricatures in a book. You get to see the whole character. And maybe there's a villain in the story, but maybe you get to see a little bit more of the villain and you discover that, oh, this person isn't just bad person doing bad things, making bad choices, but there is a human being there. And so that empathy really kind of grows a lot. And then, of course, the conversations that you have with your kids really helps again develop that empathy.

[00:25:47.570] - Dori Durbin
Jed, this is going to date me age wise, but do you remember the Highlights magazines?

[00:25:54.610] - Jedlie
Absolutely. Read it every time I went to the dentist. Dreading going in and getting my only.

[00:26:01.130] - Dori Durbin
Good thing about going to the doctor of any kind right, was the Highlights. So do you remember the comic Goofus and Gallant?

[00:26:08.580] - Jedlie
Yes, I do. I hadn't thought of them until you just mentioned it.

[00:26:12.080] - Dori Durbin
Yeah. For those of you who have no clue what we're talking about, goofus and Gallant were two characters who were brothers, and Gallant was always Gallant. He always made the right choice, and Goofus always made the choices that were quote unquote wrong. And I used to read those and I loved them. I absolutely loved them because I felt like it gave you a sense of a moral choice and what happens if you don't choose? And I found myself as a mom with the very first books referring in my brain back to those like, oh, look at how this character made this choice. What do you think? And I wanted so desperately to teach my kids that the right idea. There was a right idea and a wrong idea. And I found that I had to step back and ask my kids what they thought and not cram my own opinions into them. But that goofy and gallant piece followed me all the way into parenting.

[00:27:08.520] - Jedlie
Isn't that amazing that a simple three or four or five panel comic can stay with you and teach you great lessons?

[00:27:19.090] - Dori Durbin
Yeah. Yeah, it really did. And I think that's, you know, if we translate that into beautiful picture books that have more developed stories, and it just really it's an opportunity for the kids, for the parents, for everybody, teachers, too. I used to teach, and I would use picture books in my high school classes, and we would talk through things.

[00:27:43.670] - Jedlie
Those conversations that you have with your kids about the picture books, you can continue to have them when they start to read, and you absolutely should continue to read with them when they read independently and through middle school and high school, if you can get them. But even if you can't get your kids to sit down and read with you or co read and talk about the book, you can take that same kind of structure of reading something together and talking about it to television. And now you can sit down and you can watch a show and have a conversation about it and not just sit there being hypnotized. You can do the same thing with a movie or a play or a sporting event, just getting into the habit of having conversations and talking about different choices that were made and what would you do and how do you think? And again, it's a way of talking about those different things, but it's also a way at a very young age to let your kids know that you value their opinion. You know, you're the most important person in your kid's life, even when they're teenagers, and you think they hate you.

You are the most important person in your kid's life. And when you're sitting down and saying to them, what do you think? You're letting them know? I respect your opinion. I really want to know what you're thinking. But you also have to remember, if you ask your kids opinion, it's not a right or a wrong answer. It's an opinion. So even if they say something outrageous, you kind of got to say, okay, well, I think a different way, but you're certainly entitled to your opinion.

[00:29:18.000] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, that's hard. That's a really difficult but you're absolutely right. If we ask then we have to leave that open for them to have that opinion. Sure. All right, I'm watching our time take away. I have one more question, and that is, what are two reasons that you feel experts should have books?

[00:29:40.350] - Jedlie

Well, I mean, in addition to connecting with kids, it is an absolutely great way to connect with their parents because typically, as we've talked about here, ideally when kids are experiencing media, whether it's books, TV, music, they're experiencing with their parents. So if you want to get a message across to both parents and kids, that's a super way to do it. A pediatrician. Having a kids book makes a lot of sense because you can talk about healthy choices and whatnot and at the same time letting the parents know that, hey, I'm a great community member and you should come to see me and make me your kids pediatrician, even a dry cleaner. Maybe there's not a lesson about dry cleaning that you need to teach your kids, but you're letting the parents know that, hey, I really care about your kids in the community, and that's why we put together this kids book. And the other thing, it's just a lot of fun.

[00:30:48.850] - Dori Durbin
I think that's one thing that we have to focus on too, is it's awesome to be an author and to have kids, like you said, a fan based right. And you can actually connect and make differences.

[00:31:02.550] - Jedlie
There's something to being able to say that, hi, I'm Jedley and I'm a podcaster, I'm a dry cleaner and I'm a published author.

[00:31:17.370] - Dori Durbin
There really is in the accomplishment. It's huge too, honestly, that sense of accomplishment.

[00:31:23.070] - Jedlie
But I think you'd agree that you have to do it right and so you have to sit down and not just have your book edited. And that doesn't mean have your spouse take a look at it and find the typos. Sit down. I mean, real magic. What I read to you today is nothing like the first draft. I sat down, I worked with a really great editor who helped me polish it and put it into a language and a rhythm that kids and parents would enjoy. The same thing with the illustrations and formatting and all that, you don't have to spend a ton of money, but if you're going to do it, you should do it right.

[00:31:58.700] - Dori Durbin
I agree, I agree. And that's going to be enjoyed that much more and survive over the years instead of just a one time rate. It's going to last.

[00:32:07.290] - Jedlie
Absolutely.

[00:32:08.410] - Dori Durbin
Well, Jed, I hate to cut us off because I've had such an enjoyable conversation with you.

[00:32:13.180] - Jedlie
It has been a lot of fun.

[00:32:14.610] - Dori Durbin
It has been and I really appreciate it. Maybe you'd come back again sometime.

[00:32:18.970] - Jedlie
I think you could probably twist my arm.

[00:32:22.190] - Dori Durbin
That would be great. Well, thank you for your time today.

[00:32:25.540] - Jedlie
You're welcome. Thank you very much.