One of the best things about being a parent is reading to your kids.

And then as they get older, it's such a joy to see children develop a love for reading on their own,

as they engage with stories that spark their imaginations and stir their hearts.

In our interview today, I'm talking with trauma surgeon turned fantasy author, Katie

Butler, about the power of stories to help our kids grasp and value the true story of God's

redemption. Katie shares about how reading with her kids helped to carry her family through

the pandemic and explains why good stories resonate so deeply with all of us,

including our kids. Katie's new book is The Dragon and the Stone, the first volume in the

Dreamkeeper saga, a new fantasy series for kids. Let's get started. Well, Katie, thank you so much for joining me again on the Crossway podcast.

Now, Matt, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, yeah. We've had the pleasure of talking with you a couple times now. The first time was to talk about modern medicine and end of life care and all the tricky decisions that come with the

end-of-life in America. And then more recently, we had you on to talk about your experiences

working in an ICU as a trauma surgeon, another world that most of us know very little about,

and it's very foreign and intense. Both of those pretty heavy and serious topics.

But today, we're going to talk to you about a new fantasy fiction series that you're

writing.

And I have to say, that's not the most predictable writing move as an author.

So I wonder if you could just explain to all of us what it was that drew you to

write a fiction series. Yeah, first of all, I think I should at least backtrack and point out that

the people who now say, where did this come from when they look at my trajectory from medicine

to suddenly writing fiction, people who knew me when I was younger had the

same question when I chose medicine. Because from a very young age, all I ever wanted to do was

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