How is this book like, how is this experience for you? I like that. Yeah.

It kind of shifts it. And that isn't incentive, but it's not bribing them with money or candy or screens or something.

It's incentivizing them to spend more time with you. It's like a win kind of all the way around. Let's zoom out here and ask a more fundamental question. Why read or encounter stories at all? Like, what is a story? And why does it matter that we even encounter them?

I think Lewis is, C.S. Lewis, who has this, the quote is,

and Thursday, you might have to correct me if I'm wrong here. It's, I read to live the

lives of a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like we read an order that we can imagine with other imaginations and love with other hearts and see with other eyes. And if we think about how our commandments are to love God and to love others, then when we read and we walk a mile, it's so, a book is so interesting. There is nowhere in your life where you get to get inside the soul or the mind of another person the same way. Like, my husband doesn't get into my mind the same way that I get into little Laura Ingalls' mind when I read Little House on the Prairie, right? Right? You

want to read that? Yeah. But in reading great literature, I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, I love in moral action and in knowing I transcend myself and am never more myself than when I do. But he did, you were right. He did say that better than you.

Usually die. That's

usually true when it comes to Lewis. I know. It's always dangerous to go off memory. Or say the thing he said about, you know, he can be like a bunch of fellas. Yeah. That's not the same time

we're running yourself. Yeah. Um, what it when we read so what is

a story? What does that mean? Oh, I'm going to look it up.

I'm interested to see what you get. Okay, because here's an interesting thing. So read a lot of revival. We started our own publishing company this last year because what we know is that there are a lot of different interpretations of what a story is, right? So we're seeing we can see a picture book or a story

that its main purpose is to preach or teach a child.

A certain thing. Yeah. Now, regardless, we're depending on where you are on the spectrum. Morally or politically or whatever, you can find a book that teaches your child is almost trying to make the child into your image, right? Like I'm this book is going to teach you to value the same thing I value and teach. That's not a story. That is probably enough. Like and it could be like we agree with it, but it's still propaganda. A story is something else entirely. A story is something that helps you inhabit the life and mind of another helps you see the world with fresh eyes. But what's your,

well, I mean, Google says an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment. Oh, how interesting I disagree Google. Is that right? Entertainment. I mean, yeah, that makes sense. That's good

to be entertained. Yes. Yes.

I mean, I don't, well, who would ever tell a story for a different reason? Maybe it took for warning.

Well, if you think about ASAP's fables, those stories were told not just for entertainment, but also

to convey truth. Yeah.

So if we as a person, but

if they're not told in an entertaining way, you wouldn't have the book. Yes, that is true. Yes, that is true. Yeah. So necessary, but not sufficient, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Imaginary or real people and events told entertainment. A plot or storyline. Mm-hmm.

What's interesting to me is that the stories that last have a timelessness about them, right? So that's why, like, a really good story would have been interesting a hundred years ago and is interesting today and will be interesting a hundred years from now. Yeah. And if we're making stories or if we're choosing stories based on just this moment, it's...

I want to know what makes a story not timeless. I mean, obviously, if you're speaking about specific events of the day that aren't understood, but even then you could talk about events that are happening today that could be translated that makes sense to be all 200 years from now. So I wonder what would be a story that's not timeless? Interesting question. What makes a timeless story? I guess it's like kind of those themes that run... Like that ring true. That something that rings true.

Because, you know, stories are always going to take place in a certain time and place because it's set in a certain setting, right? So why is, you know, Little House of Mappare is an example. Why is that a timeless story when it has... her life looks very different from our lives

today? Like Star Wars would be a timeless story. Yeah. I don't like Star Wars, but typically. I like the first three that ever came out. But I mean, those themes, it's about family drama and overcoming evil and...

So maybe it's the timeless themes, the way that we

feel seen and understood.