On Being With Christa Tippett is supported in part by the John Templeton Foundation,

funding research and catalyzing conversations that inspire people with awe and wonder.

Learn about the latest discoveries in the science of hope and optimism, forgiveness and free will at Templeton.org.

Each and every adult listening to me right now is a former eight-year-old.

Wide open with yearning and possibility, understanding exactly how troubled the adults around you are,

even if they think they are hiding it from you, almost unbearably alert to the world's wonders and its dangers all at once.

And that's the reason you should listen to this conversation with Kate DiCamillo,

even if you've never heard of her bounty of books.

They include the tale of Desperot, the magician's elephant, the miraculous journey of Edward Tulane, Flora and Ulysses.

They've been turned into operas and movies, but they are at heart love letters to reading.

In the world of teachers and parents and young former children who've grown up reading her books,

Kate DiCamillo has near-cult status. I read her books with my children.

Then in the early pandemic months, feeling unmoored, I was inspired to crack them open to read by myself,

in response to a piece in the New York Times by the wonderful writer of adult novels and patch it.

She wrote of making her way through Kate DiCamillo's opus as one of the most satisfying literary adventures of her life,

and also incredibly calming.

This beautiful world had been available to me all along she confessed, but I had never bothered to pick up the keys to the kingdom.

With honesty and wisdom, laughter and tears, Kate DiCamillo makes bearable the mysterious fact that hope and heartbreak live so close, side by side, in real life.

This is her gift to her readers and to us, the sour.

I'm just a tip it and this is on being.

Because of Windixi, about a girl and her dog, was Kate DiCamillo's first novel published in 2000,

today over 11 million copies have been sold.

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