[00:00:00] Alistair Gilbert: I really romanticize and love the idea of a parent reading the child a bedtime story. 

[00:00:08] Alistair Gilbert: And thinking back on my own childhood I would've felt quite lonely going to sleep every night and not having, story read to me.

[00:00:14] Dori Durbin: What would it look like? If a therapist were to become a lecturer who became a poet who also became a children's book author? 

[00:00:23] Dori Durbin: It would look like a book intentionally designed to make generational change and bonding all at the same time. Stick around. You won't want to miss out on this story next

[00:00:34] Dori Durbin: Today's guest is a former therapist, turned university lecturer who has always loved stories. 

[00:00:42] Dori Durbin: He hopes that utilizing his knack for poetry, his desire for intentionality and his therapy background, that his books can help alleviate some common difficulties that kids face, beginning early in life, and also create parenting bonds. At the time of her interview, he was polishing [00:01:00] up his first book, Miss Mc Braid for publication. So we jumped right into the book itself.

[00:01:07] Dori Durbin: Okay, can you tell us a little bit about your new book?

[00:01:11] Alistair Gilbert: Yes. So it's called Miss Mc Braid, . In essence you've got a town that the mayor is mayor of and he doesn't like color, so he decides one day he's just gonna ban it so nothing can have color. So all of the people in the town have to paint everything white, including themselves.

[00:01:32] Alistair Gilbert: They paint their faces white and stuff. Because color's been banned and they're like, all right then. And then we have Miss Mc Braid, who, she doesn't actively challenge him on it. She doesn't call him out or anything like that, but she just keeps living her own way, which is with lots of color because she likes color and she doesn't want to give it up, basically.

[00:01:52] Alistair Gilbert: And so the book explores their power struggle between the two of them. And his [00:02:00] philosophy is more like people fight if they have different opinions. And so if colors just band, we, in theory, we all get along better. That, that was, that's always been his philosophy, I think in the various revisions and things.

[00:02:15] Alistair Gilbert: I distilled that down a bit. So now he's more we all have to think the same. And it's not as obvious that's his thinking behind it, but that always was his thinking behind it. Whereas Miss Mc Braid argues the case for individualism, basically. And actually, we can coexist even if we have different opinions.

[00:02:34] Alistair Gilbert: It doesn't mean we have to be at each other's throats if just if we don't agree on things. 

[00:02:38] Alistair Gilbert: And so her sort of philosophy wins as it were, is that his premise is based on the fact that differences in opinion will lead to fighting and, not getting along.

[00:02:50] Alistair Gilbert: And her sort of trump card if you like, is that actually we can just disagree and still get along. So we might as well make room for, [00:03:00] lots of different opinions. When we get to the final panel and the mayor come round to the individualism idea we have a little like fast forward at least in the illustrations and that he's helping to repaint the town with the other colors, but he is still head to toe in white . Ultimately I think it makes more sense that he's fully in white at the end of the story because otherwise we're just teaching the message that not liking color is not okay.

[00:03:27] Alistair Gilbert: And he has had to now conform and it's gone the other way. And that's it in a nutshell. 

[00:03:33] Dori Durbin And is it all in poetry? Is it rhyming? 

[00:03:37] Alistair Gilbert: Yeah. So I, I have a lot more fun with the writing when I write in rhyme.

[00:03:42] Alistair Gilbert: With Miss Mc Braid, the meter is pretty consistent throughout. Although I think I, I do have a little bit where I play around with the syllables to make. The sort of scenes that are a bit more dramatic and things like that. But I've got, I've been working on [00:04:00] other books and things where I've learned a lot more since when I was doing Miss Mc Braid I've been working on Miss Mc Braid now for about 18 months start to where we are now. So I've learned a lot in that time that I've been applying to Miss Mc Braid, but to the other books as well. And hopefully in future books people will see a bit more of that clever use of meter and syllables and structure and all that sort of stuff to help calve the story.

[00:04:26]  Dori Durbin: That's awesome. Are you playing a series or just more books? 

[00:04:32] Alistair Gilbert:  The thing with Ms. McBride is that her whole thing is around learning to accept differences in opinion and all that sort of stuff. And I haven't had any ideas yet, and I say yet because I might have some later of quite. What a second story with her might look like.

[00:04:50] Alistair Gilbert: Because it's a very it, the story wraps up very neatly, very much with a bow on it. 

[00:04:55] Alistair Gilbert: All the other books that I've been working on have all been single stories as [00:05:00] well. But I think that's more because I have more fun trying to create a brand new world for a new book as opposed to thinking what new thing could this character be in this week?

[00:05:11]  Dori Durbin: I think it sounds just adorable. And very purposeful, that's great.

[00:05:16] Alistair Gilbert: Yeah. It's something that the very, very first draft of the story I probably initially wrote probably about six years ago. And what kind of happened there was I was in summer holiday between years at university and I was up relatively early for some reason, and I put on the Lorax film because I just liked that film.

[00:05:38] Alistair Gilbert: And I was about a minute in and paused it and then said to myself, oh, I wonder, if I was gonna write a children's book, I wonder what I'd write it about. And I'm not joking when I say I finished the first draft in that one sitting.

[00:05:53] Alistair Gilbert: And I think 12 hours had passed and I'd not moved from the spot at all. I'd just been [00:06:00] so tunnel vision. But that was, I think it, the first very first draft was 12 50, 1300 words, something like that. And so it's gone through a lot of changes. But then around 18 months ago is when I said to myself if I think this story is really good, and I think the message is worth sharing, why wouldn't I, go and learn the real art and the craft of children's picture books so I can make this story as good as possible.

[00:06:29] Alistair Gilbert: And then if it's this good, why wouldn't I just release it, if it even helps one person, it's done its job. That sort of brings us to where we are now, and 18 months later, I'm working with a good friend of mine who's been doing the illustrations for me and now yeah we're here.

[00:06:43] Alistair Gilbert: And it's happening. It's all very exciting. 

[00:06:44] Dori Durbin: That's awesome. Again, congratulations. There's really nothing that duplicates the feeling of having your book actually out there. And then, Having kids with it will be awesome. 

[00:06:58] Alistair Gilbert: Yeah[00:07:00] because I now lecture in it's on two courses that train up our students to be low intensity therapists for children and teenagers.

[00:07:11] Alistair Gilbert: A lot of my colleagues have good sort of connections to different primary schools. And I'm hoping that I'm able to, once it's out, send around emails to a whole bunch of schools and libraries and things like that and try and do readings and have little activities for the kids to do when they come along as well.

[00:07:28] Alistair Gilbert: That sort of tie into the theme of the book. And and I'm so excited for all of that stuff to come. But yeah, I think it's gonna feel very bizarre when I actually have one in my hand. 

[00:07:39] Dori Durbin: So as far as your book goes, have you been able to test it out with real live kids? or a real live audience at all?

[00:07:46] Alistair Gilbert: A few of my colleagues at the uni have children that are in that age bracket.

[00:07:51] Alistair Gilbert: And so I asked if they could either read the story to their child or ask child to read the story. And then I put together a very quick, little feedback form [00:08:00] that was, overall what would you rate this story out of? 10, how much would you recommend to a friend outta 10?

[00:08:04] Alistair Gilbert: That sort of thing. And because I very much have the rights to the words, and my illustrator has the rights to the images, I could only send over the text because that's the only part of it that I own, until we've formally done a contract and handed over all the rights. I don't think anyone rated any aspect of the story less than eight out of 10.

[00:08:26] Alistair Gilbert: Which I thought was really promising, especially because they didn't have the pictures. And the pictures are arguably just as important as the words are in children's, if not a little bit more probably. I thought this is a good starting point, at least, to see that the kids are really enjoying it.

[00:08:41] Alistair Gilbert: And so yeah I've very much been trying to just utilize as many tools and resources and feedback and all that sort of stuff. I've had around me just because, as I say, I very much want, I very much want the book to do well purely for the message it sends. I'm not a [00:09:00] person who's very motivated by money.

[00:09:01] Alistair Gilbert: I want this thing to do really well because I feel like it could do so much if it's in the right hands.

[00:09:07] Dori Durbin Having intentionality of creating it for a specific audience is easier in the sense that you have a goal. Who do you want to have read it? 

[00:09:18] Alistair Gilbert:  I'm pleased you mentioned intentionality because. So the kind of therapy that I train my students up in and that I'm trained in is cognitive behavioral therapy or C B T I dunno if you've heard of it before, but it's a really interesting type of therapy, but it's roots go back to the stoics.

[00:09:40] Alistair Gilbert: And so I have, this is a ring I have of Marcus Aurelius. He was a big stoic and a very stoic principle. Part of their philosophy was around living with intentionality. And so how they would frame it is you are in control of your emotions and so your emotions [00:10:00] don't govern your behavior.

[00:10:01] Alistair Gilbert: You act and then your emotions will follow. It's the loose idea. 

[00:10:05] Alistair Gilbert: So about five years ago, I really started to practice this intentionality. And so anything that I'm doing, if you ask me, Hey, why are you doing that? I can give you an answer. 

[00:10:18] Alistair Gilbert: And so that's something which I found to be really helpful in my life generally. But it's been really helpful with the children's books because if you don't have something that is your why you're doing it, I think it's very easy to give up halfway through. And that's nothing on you. It doesn't mean you're, a bad person or a bad author or something.

[00:10:39] Alistair Gilbert: But my dad likes to say the famous phrase about, everyone has a book in them. And I now say to him about that, I agree with you that everyone has the idea for a book in them, but whether people will go through all of the process to actually get it made is a completely different point because it does take a lot of time, a lot of effort, especially if you wanna do it right.

[00:10:59] Alistair Gilbert: As all [00:11:00] good things do, it takes a long time. And that the intentionality that I feels a bit more natural to me now really helped me with that because it was always a, oh, can I really be bothered to sit and learn about, spend 10 hours learning how to write a good blurb? Yeah.

[00:11:15] Alistair Gilbert: But think why you're doing that. So the book can do Oh, right then. And so it's handy to have that to come back to whenever you're feeling a bit burnt out by the process or I'm not sure if you wanna carry on. 

[00:11:29] Dori Durbin That's such a good point because like you said, there's so many people that have all the desire to write kids books and they have lots of great, really fabulous ideas.

[00:11:41]But the desire to actually intentionally say, this is it, this is the last, yes, this is going, I've taken it to fruition, has been just not very strong there.  And I think that happens to a lot of people. They just don't have that focus of why do you wanna get it out there? Yeah. [00:12:00] So did you find that with your, with this first book that you really had a goal? And why did you have that goal?

[00:12:08] Alistair Gilbert: Yeah, that's a great question. As I say, I wrote, I had the initial idea about six years ago. And that was just because it was fun, I've often been that kind of person where if I'm curious about how something works or how people come and develop something, then six months later I'll have a working draft of whatever it was I was interested in because I'm just interested in how things work like that.

[00:12:31] Alistair Gilbert: So when I first had the idea, it was just like if I were to do this, what would it look like? Oh, I guess I could do this, and all that would be a bit of fun.. But the reason I came back to it about 18 months ago was I've been working at the university for around that same amount of time, and I had noticed just more broadly in society, 'cause I, I was a therapist before coming to the uni post. And so working with adults in London and I saw there that people in general were a [00:13:00] little bit more tribal.

[00:13:02] Alistair Gilbert: It was a bit more, either you agree with everything I think, or you are my enemy. And it was just something that I saw a lot in my patients as a sort of way of conceptualizing the world that just wasn't helpful for any of them. And in the therapy, what we were often doing was unpacking the mental biases and the cognitive traps that had them thinking that.

[00:13:23] Alistair Gilbert: And we would, that's basically how we helped them. So coming over to this role, part of my job is to mark my students' tapes. So they will have sessions with young people, they record them with, obviously all the full consent of the child. And I then watch it and say, oh, when the child said this, you could have said this, or, it was really good when they said this, that you said this.

[00:13:46] Alistair Gilbert: And I offer that kind of feedback. So I started to see when I was marking these different tapes, that actually a lot of the problems and the thinking biases that I would see in adults, actually children would have a lot of them as well. [00:14:00] And it was maybe a bit more early roots, but you could definitely tell if something isn't done to intervene here, that's just gonna get bigger and bigger.

[00:14:09] Alistair Gilbert: And That was really what gave me a bit more of a drive for getting the children's book out because I thought, if these same types of problems are starting to come up in children and teenagers, then all the more reason for this book to come out because just teaching early on in a very accessible way that you can disagree with people and it doesn't mean you are mortal enemies and you don't have to hate them, is a really useful thing to learn.

[00:14:39] Alistair Gilbert: So I think sometimes when you are trying to approach big topics with adults, The easiest thing to do is to think, how can I make the message of this as accessible as possible to a child? And so that was where I thought of this idea of what about colors? Because children, even when they're [00:15:00] very young, have a favorite color.

[00:15:02] Alistair Gilbert: And how ridiculous would it be for them to not be best friends with someone just because they liked red and they liked blue? Even a child would understand that, that doesn't make any sense. And it was tapping into that to give me the platform to then explore these themes.

[00:15:18] Alistair Gilbert: And being an individual, it doesn't mean you're at war with everyone else. It just means everyone can be an individual. So that's, as I say the hope with it is that I can be able to approach topics and themes that hopefully will be useful for the parent reading as well to reflect and think on too, because it's very easy for us to fall into these sorts of biases. That's why I was very busy as a therapist. But yes that's it in a nutshell. 

[00:15:41] Dori Durbin Yeah. Okay, let me ask you, why a book, why not take the message to social media, take it to a television show. Why do you feel so drawn to the book piece of it? 

[00:15:55] Alistair Gilbert: I'm very passionate about, and there's a lot of psychological [00:16:00] and clinical research around the importance of having really present parents in a child's life. And we are in a sort of crisis of particularly fatherlessness at the moment.

[00:16:14] Alistair Gilbert: And it's the research on that is all very interesting. And essentially the. The more distant say that you are as mother or father to a child, really the less they're gonna benefit from you being their parent. Really. And I appreciate for lots of people, there's lots of reasons why they can't be very present all the time, and I'm very sympathetic towards that.

[00:16:37] Alistair Gilbert: But it's because of that, that I really romanticize and love the idea of a parent reading the child a bedtime story. There's nothing that I think bonds that, that connection more than let's together explore a bit of a creative landscape where [00:17:00] let's hope, phone is off downstairs. It's just you and me sharing this bonding moment.

[00:17:05] Alistair Gilbert: And we can laugh about the story. We can, read it together. We can bond as we're doing it. And there's something I've always just really liked about the idea of. A child being read a story by a parent. And I would think, thinking back on my own chil childhood where my parents did that for me a lot, I would've thought, I would've felt quite lonely going to sleep every night and not having, say a story read to me.

[00:17:28] Alistair Gilbert: That I, that's, those are memories I look back on and really cherish. And so why not do it on social media and TV and stuff? Because I very much want to encourage as much of that bonding as possible. And social media is very much the thing which we have to be on in this day and age to promote things and, reach more people.

[00:17:50] Alistair Gilbert: But in an ideal world I would want my books to be far away from phones and things like that because it just creates [00:18:00] more of that distance between let's you and I spend time together physically. Connect over this book and we'll make our own memories with it. And I think the sort of idea of that is very beautiful.

[00:18:10] Alistair Gilbert: And I don't know that you'd get that in basically any other medium of telling a story, which isn't to say I wouldn't love to, have a TV special in the future and was listening. But but certainly for now I thought, very much steer into that wholesome family unit aspect that I'm very passionate about us really rebuilding.

[00:18:30] Alistair Gilbert: 'cause there's so many strengths to it that we can easily miss if we're not keeping an eye on it, basically. 

Dori Durbin: Hey there. Have you been listening in and letting your brain just go? Maybe you're starting to wonder if you yourself could create your own kid's book. Well, guess what you can, and I'd love to help. If you're interested in how you can create your own kid's book, book, a chat with me, it's in the notes at the end of the episode. All right back to the [00:19:00] interview

Dori Durbin: So when it comes to books, don't you feel like they create a completely unique environment for kids it's a connected spot where you can actually, like we were talking before about the pictures, you can go through and say why do you think perhaps he's white at the end?

What does that mean to you? And I think you. Get insight from the kids that you're not gonna get when they're connected to an iPad or the computer or something where they're just, focused on what's being delivered to them instead of what they're reflecting on.

Alistair Gilbert:  Absolutely. And there's something about constant stimulation from, phones or whatever it might be. That constant stimulation is the enemy of creativity, because creativity comes from when you have that quiet time to yourself and you are reflecting, as you say, on things like, yeah, I wonder how that works.

I wonder why people do that. And you can't, [00:20:00] you don't have the time for those reflective questions, even as a child if you are stimulated all the time. And to your point, again, I feel like that bedtime story time is exactly as you say. It's a very safe, it's a very boundaried space where together. You can scaffold deeper thinking and creative thinking about the book.

It might be the case of, as you say, why do you think he's still in white at the end? Why isn't he in color? If he gets it that people can like color and it's something in the world, why would he still be in white? And you get a chance to stoke that kind of creative thinking outside the box type of thinking in the child, which.

Not only helps them develop more creative, more creatively because they're thinking about books in a deeper level now but also has the benefit of hopefully making them enjoy the book a bit more. Because, my illustration and I have spent ages on these illustrations and putting in lots of details in the background and [00:21:00] things like that, that aren't mentioned in the words of the story, but are things that say if you're reading it with the child that next to you, you could point out together and go, oh, there's one, for example, where we have, when everyone's told to paint everything white, one person is trying to paint the sky and so he's got a paint roller and he is going, how do I go to the sky?

And there's things like that aren't in the story, but they're visual things that are quite fun to point out and to laugh at together. So anything that promotes that I'm all for really. 

Dori Durbin:  All of those little details that the kids might pick up on or may not, unless it's prompted by you. And then you can talk about why does it look like they're sad to you? And some of those conversations as a parent, I remember thinking, wow, the insight that they had or something that happened in their day that they were reflecting back into that book was a piece in their story that I didn't know anything about until we read the book. So it's really interesting sometimes what you get out of the kids when you open that book and literally the door to [00:22:00] them to do that. 

Alistair Gilbert: Yeah, I know. I agree completely. I've read probably hundreds of children's picture books at this point for market research and things like that, and the ones that I have enjoyed reading the most in terms of me thinking when I'm a parent.

Which one would I like to read to them more? The ones that I've been most drawn to are the ones which are a bit deeper in that way. I found myself really enjoying the ones where I could sit and think to myself, oh, I wonder why it was done that way.

And I found a lot more enjoyment from me pondering about that than, a very basic story with very basic illustrations. My illustration and I went back and forth and back and forth on what's the best way we can frame this scene?

Where would the camera be for where the page is drawn from. And so yeah, we've got. Very interesting things like for example, there's a scene where the mayor is very much looming over Ms. McBraid and that's very much a part in the story [00:23:00] where he is on top and he's winning at that point.

And the angle of the shot makes him look very big, and McBride look very tiny. And what I find amazing about it, and this is true about meter as well, or words if you are doing it right, what I find fascinating about it is that if you give someone, say two standards or two paragraphs, and one of them has really taking into account the syllables, the structure of how we say the words the sounds that go into the paragraph and everything like that.

And the other one is just. Plain descriptive doesn't necessarily rhyme or it could rhyme but it doesn't really, hasn't really bothered to think about the syllables and all that sort of stuff. I think most people would say they would prefer the first one, but the interesting bit about that is I don't think many people could explain to you why they liked the first one more, but every one of them would go, this one, I'm more connected with this one.

I visualized it more. And if you ask people [00:24:00] why do you think that is? I think a lot of people go, oh, I don't really know. It's just something about this story. And I think you get the same thing with the illustrations. It's very obvious when the illustrations don't match tonally with what's going on because it's clear as day, but it's, the hard part of it is putting in so much work to it that it, that people don't notice it.

If that makes sense. And then the whole thing feels very natural and it makes sense and that's true for the words and the pictures. So it is partly what's taken us so long to work on the book is that as passionate as I'm about the words, my illustrator is passionate about the illustrations and getting the most that we can from both.

And so it's, it is been a great joint project and hopefully we'll keep working together moving forward. 'cause I think we make a really good pair. 

Dori Durbin: Speaking of moving forward, yes. Your plans for future books are, they're there. So what is your pace [00:25:00] currently? 

Alistair Gilbert: So I've got about 10 book ideas that are all somewhere in development.

I've got lots of drafts I'm working through the book that's plans to be the second book. I am very close to the end of the fourth version of that, but each of the versions takes somewhere between 20 and 30 hours. But it looks at themes of inner strength and it's very much around a situation that seems hopeless and the main character.

Finding that strength to beat the odds, essentially. And it's been a real treat to write because originally I had this story as a poem that I just randomly wrote one day. And it was maybe about six months ago now maybe a little longer that I thought to myself, oh, I wonder if [00:26:00] that would work as a children's book.

I don't know. But I could give it a go. And and, fast forward six months and I'm very excited to see what my illustrator's gonna do with it because in a, in this book miss Mc grade, because the whole thing is around, Painting everything white. It's unusual for a children's book because it has no color on some of the pages, and usually it's very bright and attractive and, drew the children in.

But this one is, the whole point is it's an absence of all of that I think maybe she'll feel a bit more in her element and in her comfort zone with the second book that will allow her to use color to, actually make a picture as opposed to basically an empty page that hasn't got any color.

But there's some really beautiful scenes and moments in this second book that very much capture the heart of that inner strength against hardship and the rewards that come afterwards. And I'm very excited for this second book, which [00:27:00] I'm hoping will. Come out around about probably a year after Ms. McBraid comes out. I've got a much clearer vision for this second one than I had for Ms.Mc Braid, and we started in the illustrations for that. So hopefully there'll be less time where I'm going, oh, I've had to think about it. And can you do it completely differently? 

Dori Durbin: There's never anything that slows things down as much as let's do this a little differently, yeah. 

Alistair Gilbert: Yeah. And I, I felt I'd always feel so bad when I would go. Thanks so much for doing this draft. I really loved it. It was great. Here's my 101 slight tweaks I wanna make like massive list.

Dori Durbin : Oh, that's great. I know you wanna share your book with classrooms. So are there particular age groups that you're looking for or just anybody who will have you? 

Alistair Gilbert: Good question. In the UK we have infant school, and then we have primary school. So I think[00:28:00] the schools that would get the most out of it would probably be the primary ones. Maybe I, as I said, I think five-year-olds would enjoy it, so maybe the upper end of the infant schools would like it.

So the plan is to message all of the local ones in Exeter and hopefully I fit in the door with some of the schools in London as well but it's really a case of at the moment just trying to go everywhere as much as I can. Goal really for me is just to get the message out there. 

It's something you're doing for the passion of it. And as we're talking about before, I think my why of it has is just makes me so excited at the idea of going around to all the schools and just being able to spread the message really. 'cause it feels like one that is becoming more and more relevant.

Hopefully it gets to the point where people are asking me to come rather than me knocking on everyone's door and asking . 

Dori Durbin:  I love it. I love it.  Alright, I have a few last questions, but I'm gonna make them speed round questions.[00:29:00]  Let's go. One sentence or less. Okay. Okay. Your favorite myth Bible story or fable? 

Alistair Gilbert:  Ooh. I think I'm gonna go with oh, I can't remember the exact name of it now, but it's one of ESOP's Fabless and it's about the. The two dogs is the story I know where one is very hungry and sees this dog who's really fat basically, and very well fed and all this stuff.

And he's starving. So he is like, how did you get all that food? And the dog goes, oh, it's, I get all this food. It's so lovely. Or and then they go, oh what's that? And he is got a column mark around him and he's basically tied to a fence in the back garden. And he goes, oh, my master likes to keep me here.

And then, he comes round and feeds me when he does. You should a hundred percent live this lifestyle 'cause it's great. You get all the food you want, and the dog who's starving [00:30:00] goes essentially, I'd rather be free. I'd rather be free in starving than fed and a prisoner essentially.

And I've always loved that story because, I'm very much someone who likes that freedom to do things. I personally, I don't like being caged in or anything like that, so I've always really resonated with that story and I think ESOP did a great job of making so many morals, so accessible. So look up to them a lot. 

Dori Durbin : Perfect. Perfect. What's one thing you wish kids knew earlier in life? 

Alistair Gilbert I would that they don't have to succeed at everything in order to have value, be worthy of love, and that they might still see future success.

Because I think in the UK, at least where we are now, it very much feels like the schooling system says unless you become a doctor or a [00:31:00] lawyer, you've basically failed. And maybe that's me oversimplifying it which would be fair. But it very much feels that way to me and I think a lot of children get very despondent over not being those two things.

And there's so much so much joy you can have in just accepting that, my interests might not be the same interests as someone else and I'm gonna find my own path just because I didn't, just 'cause I didn't get 10 outta 10 on the test doesn't mean that I'm bad or, a bad person or I'm rubbish or anything like that.

'cause we all have different strengths and that's what makes life so interesting. 

Dori Durbin: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. One more. One more.. If you could do any job that you haven't done or are currently doing, what would it have been and why? 

Alistair Gilbert: Ooh, that's a great question. I actually know this. So I would be a I would be a researcher. I, I'm absolutely fascinated by sleep, which is [00:32:00] very maybe all right, kids book about that someday. But I find sleep so interesting. What, how the different sort of cycles of sleep and the benefits of it and how different species sleep. I don't know if you know this some of the animals that swim have, they basically switch off one half of their brain at a time.

So they sleep one half of their brain. 'cause they have to keep swimming, otherwise they would die. And I just find that so amazing. So I would, I'd be a researcher for sleep because I just think it's such an interesting topic. 

Dori Durbin: That's awesome. That definitely could be a book too, by the way.

Alistair Gilbert:  Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I just have to find something that rhymes with rapid eye movement and I'll be fun. Yeah, that might take a little time, but you can do it. I know you can. 

Dori Durbin:  So where's the best place for people to find you and to watch for your book? 

Alistair Gilbert:  Great question. I am on Facebook AI Gilbert books.

Instagram is AI Gilbert [00:33:00] books as well but without any punctuation. I'm also on X AI Gilbert books and also AI Gilbert author as well, which doesn't have too much on it at the moment, but I'm hoping that's gonna be a bit more around myself and my kind of writing journey. And then the AI books, one will be more for things like this book's coming here.

I'm doing a talk here and the more formal stuff as it were. I also have a website as well. Which is www.ai Gilbert books go UK since they're theme in all of my stuff there. It's all the same name, basically. Yeah. So that's the best place to, to get ahold of me and to reach out. If there's anyone that's listening in the UK and thinks my book would be good for their primary school or something like that feel free to message me on Instagram or Facebook.

I'd love to hear from you and connect. 

Dori Durbin: Thank you so much, Alistair. I really appreciate your time today. I can't wait to see your book. I'm almost as excited to see it as I would be my own book. So I'm looking forward to it. And I just thank you for all [00:34:00] that you're doing for kids and families.

Alistair Gilbert: That's very kind of you, Dori. I know you're also a big fan of the impact that Children's Books can have, and so it's nice to. Meet with someone who gets it because sometimes it can feel like you are preaching. It's been lovely being here and thanks so much for your time as well. I really appreciate that. 

[00:34:18] Dori Durbin: Absolutely. Thank you.

[00:34:21] Dori Durbin: Oh hey don't go yet i have exciting news guess. What

[00:34:27] Dori Durbin: since our recording, the book is on Amazon. now it's available. So if you want to go out and buy MISS. McBraid. M C B R A I D. by A.I. Gilbert. You can find it today on Amazon. Check it out. You won't be sorry.