Kate DiCamillo writes books for kids and young adults that also just happened to break

open grown-ups hearts, including this grown-up.

She's fiercely honest, always telling the truth, but also always leading you to a place

of awakening and hope, especially in circumstances that seem destined for the opposite.

Right now we can all use a bit more of that.

We're moving to Minnesota from Florida in her 20s, kind of an enduring homesickness

and a really bitter winter helped inspire her to write because of Windixi, her first

published novel, which became a runaway bestseller and earned her a new berry honor.

Since then, Kate's written for a wide range of ages, earning a devoted audience and heaps

of accolades, and the theme of hope and belief amid tough circumstances is a common thread

in much of her writing.

And no small part because that was her story too, as you will hear shortly.

Her number one New York Times bestseller, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, moved

me so deeply, even though it was clearly written for a much younger audience.

It just left me thinking about life and how I wanted to live it on a day-to-day basis

and really what I wanted to create in my wake.

Long after I stopped reading this stayed with me.

The tale of Desproe, her new berry metal-winning novel, Later Inspired, an animated adventure

from Universal Pictures and Kate was named National Ambassador for Young People's Literature

for 2014-2015 and an amazingly, she has allowed early drafts of some of her biggest work

to be made public, encouraging up and coming writers to understand how truly messy and often

fraught the process is, how much work it takes, and that if you just keep writing, things

...