Hello London. The Moth is returning to Union Chapel on Thursday, September 28th for a night of vibrant true stories.

The main stage is the quintessential Moth experience, a two-act show featuring a musical act, where the storytellers and a notable host share true personal tales without notes.

Experience a night of unforgettable Moth tales as they're recorded for future episodes of the Moth podcast and radio hour.

Doors open at 7 and doors begin at 8. Get your tickets now at TheMoth.org, Bowie Slash, London.

Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Chloe Sammon, producer and director at The Moth and your host for this episode.

What I remember most about my childhood are the huge feelings.

Not being able to perfect a cursive S in the third grade led me to the brink of despair.

Not kidding, ask my mom. But watching the newly green trees flashed by the car window at the start of spring brought me a wild joy.

Every emotion felt so magnified that I wonder now how my small body held them all at the time.

And while it can sometimes be hard to navigate, there can be a lot of beauty in being so young and feeling so much.

This episode will be sharing two stories about childhood and the big feelings that come with it.

First up, we've got Madam McDonough. She told this at a story slam on the theme of Disappearances in NYC.

Here's Madam. Live at The Moth.

I don't think that I could overstate the thrill, the excitement of knowing that the scholastic book fair is coming to your school.

Fair assessment. Well, if you don't know what this scholastic book fair is, this company comes and sets up a market for children in a classroom and you can buy books and toys.

And it happens once a year and it's absolutely thrilling to experience capitalism as an eight-year-old.

So I have two older sisters, my sister's Cassie Elizabeth, and they had been hyping me up for years about the scholastic book fair and it was finally my turn to go in kindergarten.

And my parents gave me $5 bill which could get you very far at the scholastic book fair back in the day.

And I picked out a book and not just any book but a book that lit up and it made noises when you turned the pages and it was just a beautiful book.

That day, after purchasing that book, was hanging out in the basement with my two older sisters.

Cassie, eight years older than me, so she's 13 at this time, Elizabeth's three years older than me, so she's eight years old I guess.

They could supervise me at this age, right? You know, it was the early 2000s.

...