Building Imagination and Lifelong Readers - SE04EP14 - Ashley Wall
In this episode of Parenting in the Digital Age, we sit down with Ashley Wall, M.Ed.—former educator, children’s author, and founder of MamaBear Books—to explore the transformative power of reading and storytelling in a child’s development. From her journey as a teacher to becoming a champion of creativity and literacy, Ashley shares practical tips for fostering a love of reading, balancing screen time, and nurturing your child’s imagination. Discover how books can build emotional intelligence, spark connection, and help parents navigate life’s challenges alongside their kids. Whether you're raising a reluctant reader or simply looking for inspiration, this conversation is packed with wisdom for modern families.
https://mamabearbooks.com/
Sponsored by Skill Samurai - Coding, Maths and STEM Academy | | www.skillsamurai.com.au
AI Generated Transcription
Intro
Skill Samurai (00:00.91)
Hello parents and welcome to the Parenting in the Digital Age podcast. Today, we're very excited to be joined by Ashley Wall, a former educator, imaginative storyteller and founder of Mama Bear Books, a boutique children's book publishing company with a heart for nurturing creativity and literacy in kids. With a passion for empowering young minds and fostering a lifelong love of learning, Ashley's taken her experience as a public school teacher and turned it into a mission. That is to inspire children and families everywhere through storytelling.
And in this episode, we'll explore the importance of storytelling, the impact of reading from infancy and how parents can foster creativity in their own children. Let's dive in.
Interview:
Skill Samurai (00:00.848)
Ashley, thanks for joining us. Maybe you can start at the top by sharing with our listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do and what you're passionate about.
Ashley Wall (00:09.346)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited. I am first and foremost, I'm a mom. I was a former educator.
Ashley Wall (00:19.058)
And turning stay at home mom was I had kids, it was really great. And we read so many books that I just kept getting so inspired. I knew eventually I wanted to get back into the career world. I just didn't know what that looked like. And this idea to write a book just kept growing in my mind. Talked to my husband, I said, I want to write a book. And he said, great, let's write a book. Let's start a publishing company. And so I started writing and wrote my first book.
We started Amave Book, so we are now also publishers and we bring on others, other people who are similar to me who have these ideas or these manuscripts and they just don't know what to do with them, but they've had these ideas for years and we can help bring their stories to life and really empower and encourage kids through reading and literacy.
Skill Samurai (01:05.926)
Yeah, you know, and it's an interesting journey you've taken because many aspiring writers finally make the leap and write their first book. But you've gone the extra step and you've become a publisher as well. So how did that all come about?
Ashley Wall (01:21.07)
Yeah, like I said, it was kind of in the back of my mind for years. And I would kind of like type a little manuscript after putting my kids down for a nap. And then finally was super inspired from a little day date with my daughter, came home, talked to my husband. And I had some, you know, we had some strong ideas for the book and the series and what we wanted to do. And we were looking for, you know, another business. And he was like, well, we'll publish it ourselves.
thought how cool would it be to help others, you know, make their publishing dreams come true. And so we said, we'll start a publishing company. And it was literally a conversation in a Sunday afternoon in our backyard. And, and it just kind of kept going from there. We started researching, we started learning, making connections with people and, yeah, haven't looked back since. We'll look back a few times, but you know,
Skill Samurai (02:08.77)
You do the journey of entrepreneurship isn't easy. Well, maybe that can be the next question. What are some of the challenges of kind of being your own boss, you making this leap from middle school math teacher to entrepreneur and author? What are some of those challenges along the way?
Ashley Wall (02:26.176)
There have been, yeah, we call them our education. You know, I have two math degrees, but I don't have, you know, the writing. I have a lot of ideas. So I've had to bring on a lot of amazing, incredible editors and illustrators and just the book design and learn the publishing world. You know, I'm an avid reader, so I know books, but the publishing side, you know, I just learning a whole new aspect. And it's still we're still growing and learning. But just all the learning, you know, we we've made a lot of
mistakes, but we've learned from every single one of them. We met incredible people who have helped us along the way. It's been amazing to be my own boss, but sometimes I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing. Can someone tell me what to do? So that part can be challenging too, but you know, we've had been blessed to have a lot of amazing people to help us.
Skill Samurai (03:14.418)
Yeah, that's so true. It's a learning curve. I see a lot of entrepreneurs in our own circle. And I think that that learning curve, particularly that first six to 12 months is often the hardest because you're learning. You know, it's one thing to say, I love food, but it's another to say that I can cook. Right. And making that leap is requires a whole rethink and different journey. So well done on taking that leap.
Ashley Wall (03:26.012)
yeah.
Ashley Wall (03:32.976)
yeah!
Skill Samurai (03:42.17)
So let's talk a bit about, I mean, our audience are parents and why is reading from infancy so crucial? So like I'm talking like really young kids, pre-readers, why is that so crucial to their development?
Ashley Wall (03:58.36)
their brain, kids brains are developing rapidly from the very beginning. You know, we don't even think about it. You have a one month old and their brains are making so many connections and you're building that foundation, you know, that foundation that you don't see right away. It builds and they're hearing the words they're watching, especially, you know, that zero to two, they're seeing your mouth move and they're mimicking your words and your mouth. So when you're reading to them and they're looking at you, you know, they don't always have to look at the picture. If they're looking at your mouth too, they're mimicking their words. They're learning how to
put sounds together to form their their mouths to make letters and words and then as it grows kids who are read to daily when they start to read in that kind of pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, first grade they're picking up they've heard so many words so when they're starting to sound them out boom they know them and so it just really helps lay that foundation for learning to read and then it develops their imaginations their creativity they're able to empathize better and
think critically better and it just really helps all around on that brain development. Plus, you know, when you're cuddled up with your kiddo, it's also some bonding time with parents and kids too.
Skill Samurai (05:08.7)
Yeah, so much time packed there. You're hitting a lot of different points and important points. know, but storytelling is certainly, in my view, is one of the best ways to teach those life lessons or values to kids because books go well beyond entertainment, books go well beyond literacy skills. And they really do, particularly for those that get into like after infancy, of course, they become tools for personal growth, emotional intelligence, and as you pointed out, things like creativity. So what are some...
Ashley Wall (05:19.608)
Yes.
Skill Samurai (05:37.564)
Practical tips perhaps for some parents listening who want to encourage a love of reading in their children. Are there any routines or rituals that you recommend for creating kind of a reading culture at home?
Ashley Wall (05:48.574)
Yeah, I have books everywhere. You know, first have them in the living room, the playroom, the bathroom, you know, kids, it's funny. Can I have a book, you know, but I literally have them everywhere in the car in their rooms, they will pick up the books. And even if they're looking at them reading to their selves, that's really beneficial. And then they're used to having them make it fun. You know, some kids just naturally love books, and some kids need a little bit more.
help to sit down and just you could do funny voices, help them find the dog on the page, or you know, get them interacted with the books, they want to sit on the floor, you know, go to the library and they can check out books that they're interested in. And then they bring them home and they're super excited to get to read them too. So just having books everywhere and making it really fun and studying like we do, we'll read anytime my kids want to read but we have we go up and we have a reading time before bed.
And you know, it is hard at the end of the day when they're, everyone's tired, but they're like, one more book, one more book. And they always want to keep reading, you one more book. And it's so good for their brain. So we have to remember, okay, one more book might take two or three minutes, maybe five at the most. But what their brains are getting is so important for them to just stay up for one more book. But sometimes one more book becomes 10 more books.
Skill Samurai (07:04.696)
It does indeed. And it's a wonderful way for parents to help even reluctant readers really fall in love with books. What advice would you give to parents perhaps who might worry that their children are more interested in screens than books? How do we compete with the digital distractions?
Ashley Wall (07:11.928)
Yeah.
Ashley Wall (07:20.718)
It is, it's tough. Don't make the screens an option. You know, we have books in the car or we'll have little games in the car. I know like sometimes in the car, it's easy to just give a screen, but if it's not there, then it's not even up for debate. You know, we've seen our kids in the mornings too. It is like, okay, put on a show and make breakfast, know, but it, it changes their brains, you know, when there's a show or a screen.
And so during the week, no shows. don't have the TV on anymore and it has really changed it. And at first, parents who their kids are used to having screens in the car or used to having screens in the morning or at certain times, it will be a little bit of an adjustment, but the kids will adjust pretty quickly. I would say have the books out or have a little craft out in the morning if they're used to.
if they're used to having screens for saying in the morning, help them make breakfast, help them, you know, have them do other things, but have that stuff out. It's kind of hard for kids who are used to having a screen to go find it on their own. So pull out a couple of little toys or pull out some crafts or have some other things that are there from the beginning. Instead of like screens off, let's go play. Just don't even have that as, as an option. And then that kind of made me think too is one thing too, if you are because you know,
Screens are helpful sometimes, or you know, we just want to watch a movie or whatever. So on the times when you do have a screen, I like to pull out toys and like start playing myself and the kids are like, what are you doing over there? You know, and it'll kind of pull them away naturally versus just shutting it off and then they're screaming and it's chaos everywhere.
Skill Samurai (08:57.196)
So what's your process then? So for those listening, you there may be a parent who wants to, you know, follow in your footsteps somewhat and write their book. They've been thinking of this idea for some time. Can you walk us through the process of how do you take an idea for a children's book and get that to a published product? What does that process look like in a basic?
Ashley Wall (09:17.614)
Yeah, I mean, first start writing, you know, when I first started, I just wrote and all kinds of manuscripts all over the place. And some kind of I would get stuck and some really took off. did a lot of like, kind of brain dumps where I just like set a timer on my phone and just wrote everything that came to mind and then put it all together. And then one thing that you cannot skip on is editing, get professional editors, they're out there, you can get really great ones. And that'll really bring your manuscript to life be open to the changes.
developmentally and then making sure it is copy edited as well. And then decide, you know, now there are so many options you can self publish if you want to put all of your resources behind it, market advertise all yourself. There are you know, go with the big publishers, you get an agent and submit to big publishers, you can do small publishers like us. Typically, don't need an agent for that you can submit on websites. So there's a lot of different ways they can do it. But first, just start writing.
get yourself a good product and know the market. If you're writing to kids, know what kids are into and what they like. And another thing I did is, what do I not want in a book too? That's helpful. As a parent reading out loud, there were sometimes, was like, I do not like reading this book. I do not wanna read this book anywhere out loud. So it's also good to know, what do you not want in your book too? So just really knowing your market and what point you're trying to get across.
Skill Samurai (10:36.882)
So I'm curious, right? So AI is sort of taking off and everyone's using AI. There are so-called authors now who are just literally using AI for the whole process, using it for editing and whatever. And I've got my own views. I think at the moment AI isn't quite there to produce the quality that a human can produce. I think that there are people trying to monetize really poor ideas and there's poor execution. And you can tell the difference between a human written book and an AI generated book.
Ashley Wall (10:46.148)
huh.
Ashley Wall (11:04.536)
Mm-hmm.
Skill Samurai (11:05.522)
You know, and maybe that'll change. Maybe I will get better as we go. But what's your view on, you know, I written content and books for kids versus human written content, human publishing for books.
Ashley Wall (11:18.016)
Yeah, it is tough. is, you know, my husband is in the tech industry. So he's always like, you have to work with the technology and you know, be open to certain things. And so I get that. And you know, he's shown me some things that are, you know, helpful to help, you know, you're stuck on like, how can I write this sentence a little bit better, and it is helpful versus like having to go by maybe an editor just to rewrite your sentence. And then those are your own words. But you know,
It's taking the creativity from a person. still think, know, same like I want my illustrators to be people that I can work with and we can collaborate and get creative with. And that's the thing that I'm building with my kids and you know, other kids when I do book readings and stuff is that creativity and their imagination. I I don't want them, you know, to just type it into a computer and it does it all for them. You know, that's the same thing screens are doing. So.
I know that technology is evolving and we have to evolve with it, but on the creative side, I still think that we should be writing our own books.
Skill Samurai (12:11.878)
Yeah, I think so. And, know, it's important to support authors, support publishing houses, even that particularly small publishers. know, there's parents need to be careful, you know, when I'm on Amazon or something looking for a book, it's getting hard to discern what's just been kind of cookie-cutted, AI written by somebody trying to make a quick doha versus someone that's put, you know, two years of work into their book.
Ashley Wall (12:20.365)
Yeah.
Ashley Wall (12:37.046)
Yeah.
Skill Samurai (12:41.552)
And they're vastly from products. It can be sometimes hard for parents to pick the two. hopefully there are, I don't know, maybe there are things in place where they have to identify this has been written with AI versus written in a human sense, because, you know, it would be a sad world. We'll be lost that human creativity. How do you go ahead?
Ashley Wall (13:00.014)
Yes, I agree. I should say there are, you I haven't asked, you know, when I'm uploading manuscripts and stories and stuff, like was AI used to create this book? So I don't know if it labels it anywhere, because I always say no, because we don't use any AI. But I would be curious to see, you know, the ones that say yes, is that like, you know, asterisk or fine printed somewhere on the listings? Something to look into.
Skill Samurai (13:22.908)
Yeah, good, good, Yeah, I'm curious. I might go down that rabbit hole one day and try and investigate. So you mentioned working with illustrators and other professionals to bring your stories to life. What does that process look like? So I think at the beginning or maybe pre-show you talked about having an illustrator in Australia. So how do you collaborate with illustrators and what does that look like in terms of a process?
Ashley Wall (13:28.492)
Yeah.
Ashley Wall (13:48.042)
Yeah, so we'll start with our editors and I've kind of built up a team now that we've been doing this for a couple years, but I've met them. There's a website called Readsy that's really great at putting professionals and they vet the professionals. And then, you know, people who are looking for editors, marketers, illustrators together. so I work on the editing side and then I found kind of a team of illustrators now that I've used, like the one from Australia, he's been amazing. And going back to like a beginning point that we talked about on
you know, your struggles and how have you learned and grown. He has been such an amazing part of our growth because of his experience in the industry. So yeah, I kind of sent over the manuscript to give an idea of what I want to look like. kind of like for my series, the day I had we developed what one of these characters look like.
He put it all together and then he puts the storyboards and he'll send back and I'll kind of give some notes. But I tried to let the illustrators really create because I might have a vision in my head and what they bring to life. like, wow, that's awesome. So it's a really, it's such a fun process to see your words. And then now you have these characters and I feel like they're real little people.
Skill Samurai (14:53.894)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, for those listening, we haven't really talked about any of the books yet. So tell us about your bestselling book or your favorite book or your first book. Give us a bit of a synopsis as to what that's about and what age group it's pitched at.
Ashley Wall (15:08.718)
Yeah, it's kind of all the same book is kind of your answer is the answer to all of that. The day I had series is my first one. It also was our first book. It came out in September 2023. It's about these four kids who just have really big imaginations and their toys kind of come to life for a day. So the first one's the day at a bulldozer and they have construction vehicles for the day. And the kids are just really empowered to use the vehicles and make their own decisions and have teamwork and kindness and friendship. And then the next one is dinosaur and then our
March release is a fire truck, so they're firefighters for a day. And so it just kind of continues to empower them to use their imaginations and to work together. And it's also really silly and fun. We want kids to love reading, so we want our books to be fun and engaging. And we want parents to enjoy reading them as well, but also teach kind of our streamlined lessons or kindness and friendship, encouragement, empowerment, all that kind of stuff.
Skill Samurai (16:00.54)
Yeah, it's important and it's wonderful to see those core values being built into the books and really helping parents raise great citizens. In what ways do you think writing and publishing has shaped your own relationship with your kids?
Ashley Wall (16:09.827)
Yeah.
Ashley Wall (16:17.742)
So it has been really interesting. didn't really know what to expect, honestly, going into it. my daughter, especially, she's a little older, she's six. She has started her own little business now. So she makes jewelry. And when we do, you know, local markets and stuff, and we set up our booth and sell our books, she'll have her own little table and
sell her bracelet. So she's like, I have my business now. So it's really been such a fun thing to see her, you know, grow as a little entrepreneur. And then they both my son and daughter, my son is four.
Will want to write stories and you know, even my son will take him out to markets and he's like Well, you should read this book It is blah blah blah and he'll like be like bringing people into the booth talking to them about our books so it's just really cool to see how they've gotten involved and Really into it and they love to give their feedback and they get so excited when the stories come and the books come in and they'll write their own stories now
So it's really cool. It's been really an amazing bonus that I wasn't really expecting or I didn't know what to expect.
Skill Samurai (17:25.148)
It's incredible and it just made me think while you were answering that many parents or many people around the world, they've got jobs and they're very, very separate from their family. Those jobs are very, very separate from their kids. And when you own a business, it's almost the opposite. The business almost consumes the household. But when done correctly and managed well, yeah, I get this chaos in business ownership.
Ashley Wall (17:36.546)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Wall (17:45.058)
Yeah.
Skill Samurai (17:52.444)
you know, for all the reasons you just highlighted there, know, growing young entrepreneurs, building communication skills in your son's brooking books. There's so many lessons scattered throughout that relationship between entrepreneurship and publishing and, and parenting. So yeah, thanks for sharing.
Ashley Wall (18:10.166)
Yeah, it's been a really neat thing. But a balance, know, like, don't want you know, I want them to love the company. I don't want them it to overtake, you know, the parenting part of it. So that's something that from the beginning, we said, you know, we want them involved in stuff. But we don't want it to be, you know, the kids push aside because business comes first. It's not at all, you know, the kids have to come first. But it's fun to integrate them in.
Skill Samurai (18:32.892)
Yeah, yeah, well said, well said. If you could give one piece of advice to parents about fostering literacy and creativity, what would that be?
Ashley Wall (18:43.214)
One piece, ah, books. Have the books everywhere. You know, they can't read if they don't have the books and they will pick them up. If you have a stack of books, they'll pick them up. Switch books out. You know, they might get tired of the same book, so they have a pile for a week and then switch out another one. That's, you know, another reason good to go to the library. can check out a bunch, but just having books everywhere in all the rooms and the car, they'll pick them up.
Skill Samurai (19:08.784)
Yeah. And there are so many, and it doesn't have to be an expensive process or a burden on family budgets. mean, there are libraries and book exchanges, local supermarkets and all sorts of things. If you, if you look hard enough. One fun question we like to ask all of our guests before we wrap up the podcast is if we had a time machine and Ashley could go back to her 12 year old younger self, what's one piece of advice that you give to the 12 year old Ashley?
Ashley Wall (19:14.764)
No, yeah, library's free.
Ashley Wall (19:21.122)
Yeah.
Ashley Wall (19:39.47)
You never know what's to come. I remember thinking, you know, all throughout my stages, like I didn't know what I wanted to be. Like, you tell me I'd be a teacher. Like no way. And then in college, like, well, now I'm to be a teacher and that's just what I'll do forever. And it was an amazing part of my life. But then now I have this over here. So I would say, you know, continue to learn and grow. There's so many books I read now that I'm like, I wish I had read this when I was 24 and in the classroom, it would have helped me as a teacher.
So he would tell young Ashley that, just to keep learning and growing and you just don't know where it might lead you.
Skill Samurai (20:16.818)
Great advice and actually just a side question out of curiosity. Are there lesson plans for other educators who want to use your books in the classroom?
Ashley Wall (20:25.634)
We do, yeah, on our website we have free printables and you know, that'll be kind of like learn the letter B or ways that you can, you know, when you make mistakes, because some of our books will have, you know, this one character kind of, Mikey, gets into these silly little mishaps in all the books. And so like, how can you persevere if you're stuck on something or, you know, you're trying to learn? And so we have a lot of printables that go with the books and it's all free on our website.
Skill Samurai (20:51.474)
And what's the website?
Ashley Wall (20:53.194)
mamabairbooks.com
Skill Samurai (20:55.474)
Super. That's it. I think it brings us to the end of our show today. Ashley, thank you so much for your time and generosity. We'll put some links and stuff in the show notes. So parents who want to reach out or get in contact or acquire your books for their family, they can do so. Thank you so much for your time and I hope we cross paths again soon.
Ashley Wall (21:16.696)
Thank you, I hope so too as well. You've been awesome. Yes, bye.
Skill Samurai (21:18.62)
Cheers and bye for now.
If you enjoyed the show, please connect with Jamie on LinkedIn or Instagram. You'll find links in the podcast description. Parenting in the Digital Age is sponsored by Skill Samurai Coding and STEM Academy for Kids. Skill Samurai offers afterschool coding classes and holiday programs to help kids thrive academically and socially while preparing them for the careers of the future. Visit www.skillsamurai.com.au.
This episode is sponsored by Skill Samurai - Coding & STEM Academy www.skillsamurai.com.au.