you. Good morning. I am so honored to be here. Thank you for that beautiful introduction. I would like to begin with a quote by Angelo, my greatest hope is that I laugh as much as I cry. My greatest hope is that I laugh as much as I cry. I think that that is profound wisdom, that she is not hoping that she'll never cry, but she's hoping that she'll have as much laughter as the tears here, Maya pretty much guarantees that there will be a lot of sorrow in this life. I agree with her, and this is why I tell stories. I do not write for children to escape reality. I write to help them cope with it. I believe young readers need to see characters who face devastating circumstances in healthy ways and all the blues in the sky. The character sage is grieving the sudden death of her best friend. She is 13, and she wants to be a pilot one day. So so much of what she sees about the world is through looking at it by comparing it to what she's learning about flying after learning about the different layers of the sky, the different shades of blue pilots. Pilots see many shades of blue in the sky, light blue, medium blue, vibrant, bright blue, white, blue, violent blue, a blue, deep and mysterious mixed with gray, a blue that melts and sheds and morphs into purples and pinks. Everyone looks at those blue skies and loves them. Everyone loves those beautiful blue skies, but sometimes, sometimes the sky is dark blue, black, blue, midnight blue, and sometimes life is blue too. Blue is the empty chair at the desk in the classroom where my best friend used to sit. Blue is the ache in my heart when I pick up the phone to call her and remember she is gone, gone. Blue is aunt Emmy's warm hugs. Blue is a hot mug of cocoa on a cold winter day. Blue is all the calm, all the heartbreak, all the hope, all the tears, all the laughter, maybe, just maybe blue, not red, is the color of love, with all its mood and passion and emotion for all the blues in the sky, there are as many blues in the heart. I want to talk about all the blues we carry. I can look out at you and I get a sense of your style. I see how you style your hair. I can kind of guess how tall you are, but I don't know what memories you hold. I don't know what losses you have had. I don't know who you're mourning. I don't know what recipes have been passed down generation after generation. This time you cried. I don't know what brings you, belly aching, laughter, what your favorite movie is, your favorite song, but it's all here in this room with us. We carry our stories, our histories, who we are, the essence of what we've been through with us everywhere we go. And I believe that young people carry their stories with them too. As our young people are learning and growing and finding their voices and processing what is happening in this world as they grieve, I want them to have a safe space to heal, to be seen, to be validated. I hope that my books are the hug a child needs, that my characters become their friends, that they hear me encouraging them through every line, every word. I see you. You can survive this I see you. Yes, yes. I know it's hard. I know I see you, but it's okay. It's okay to have questions, it's okay to keep dreaming. It's okay to have wild, big dreams. It's okay to cry, it's okay to be sad. I see you. I see here are some characters. Here's Jade and Ryan and Nala and sage. See how they rise. See you can rise too. Our young people need to know they can rise, that it won't always hurt this bad, that they can hold many time, that a bad day, a hard moment, a traumatic experience, doesn't define who they are. I believe they need to have books where they see characters grappling with intense feelings while holding on to joy and gratefulness, because, as Maya Angelou alluded to, along with the tears, there can be laughter. So let's talk about laughing as much as we cry. I want to talk about joy as resistance. Dr Robert Hayden describes joy as unreasonable happiness because it doesn't need a reason. It is a happiness that is based on nothing. In other words, it doesn't need a cause or an effect in order to exist. Happiness is brought by external things. Joy is internal. Joy does not change. When circumstances change, Joy is the inner knowing, a kind of peace that anchors the soul when chaos is erupting. I am the descendant of enslaved people. They left me a legacy of joy, of making a way out of no way. In the midst of brutality, they somehow found a way to sing, a way to communicate with each other, hidden messages for survival. They passed down their know how, through oral histories and art, they saw a future for future generations that would be better than the one they were living. Somehow they knew the current reality, the very real, painful, unjust reality they were enduring, would not could not last always I am talking about that kind of hope, that kind of joy, the kind of joy that is able to laugh and love and celebrate in times like these, the kind of joy that accompanies faith and resolve, the kind of joy that says even in the midst of wars and hate crimes, myths and racism, in the midst of book banning, any ratio of marginalized voices, even while grieving, we will not give up. We will press on, even with tears in our eyes, even with heavy hearts. We will fight. We will in all the blues in the sky. Sage is anchored by the wisdom and love from her aunt Emmy, who knows a thing or two about grief and is not afraid to have honest conversations about living and loss. This is a moment that they are talking and having a conversation about grief on any and I go to Chelsea Market. We try on jewelry, we know we are not going to buy taste samples and people watch. There's an even mix of tourists and locals, and we can tell by who keeps stopping to take pictures and ooh and ah. I miss her all the time. I say, you always will. Aunt any tells me really I ask not as an actual question, but because I am surprised aunt ENI is being so honest. Most times adults tell me it'll get better or Time will heal. But on any says you will miss her every day of your life. Sometimes the memories will bring tears, sometimes a smile. The memories won't always overwhelm you. They will bring comfort too. Is that how it is with you? Do you miss grandma every day, every single day, and she's been gone for 40 years. I think about this aunt, ENI, has been living 40 years without her sister, and dad has been without his mom most of his life. And I never knew this woman who is my grandmother 40 years and But isn't that a beautiful thing to have experienced, the kind of love that never truly leaves, that only grows and grows in the past 40 years? Aunt Emmy has cried and worried and prayed and dreamed and planned and failed and succeeded and laughed and celebrated and raised children and moved and worked and retired on vacation and volunteered and read and sang and walked and talked and remembered and reflected and dipped her toes in the ocean and watched snow fall and got caught out in the rain and loved and grieved. And every day she got up, and every day she got up,