Members of the Children’s Book Council gathered on October 5 in New York City for the organization’s annual meeting, in which the CBC shared a report from the previous year and plans for future programming and outreach.

During the meeting’s business portion, executive director Carl Lennertz delivered a recap of his first year at the helm of the CBC and Every Child a Reader. The year brought significant turnover at the CBC, and Lennertz thanked both past and present staff and board members for their work. He went on to discuss the nonprofit’s many partnerships, “some new, and others getting closer and stronger,” including those with Behind the Book, Sesame Workshop, and the Library of Congress. Lennertz stated, “A big new mission is community outreach. We can be out there, making a difference.” To that end, the CBC has spearheaded book donations for Texas schools and shelters affected by Hurricane Harvey. Five thousand books have been donated to date by member publishers.

Above all, the CBC aims to do “more, better, faster,” Lennertz said. The annual Children’s Book Week celebration continues to expand in size and scope; this year’s celebration included more than 700 events. The goal for 2018, Lennertz said, will be “to do more with each location.” Another goal is increasing community outreach to children and teens in need—in New York City and beyond—and connecting with high school students to present publishing as a potential career path. Lennertz concluded by thanking “the teachers, librarians, booksellers, authors, illustrators, and publishers who are working at the front lines every day” to enrich the lives of children through literature.

Next, Jason Reynolds took the stage to deliver the keynote. In the four years since the publication of his debut novel, When I Was the Greatest (Atheneum/Dlouhy), Reynolds has established himself as a prolific and prominent author. Reynolds began his talk on a personal note, describing a recent visit to his mother’s house, where he took part in something of a mother-son tradition: watching Steve Harvey’s talk show. “Now, I am not a Steve Harvey fan, but I love my mother,” he said. So Reynolds proceeded to “hate-watch” with his mom—not expecting to find insight into his own writing practices.

This particular episode featured young women who were hoping to make their boyfriends fall deeper in love with them. Harvey outlined three dating rules from popular psychological studies: embarrass yourself; create an inside joke; and be overly thankful. The host then sent the women on dates to test out each of the principles. (Reynolds recalled cringing at the show’s setup, while his mother said, “This is gonna be a good one!”) Afterwards, Harvey interviewed the women’s boyfriends for their reactions.

Reynolds was surprised to learn that, according to the men, these seemingly absurd methods were quite effective. That night, while preparing for an upcoming speech on writing for boys, Reynolds found himself thinking about the experiment and the larger insights behind the rules. “They had nothing to do with dating. They were about human interaction,” he said.

In thinking further about the rules, Reynolds began to draw similarities to his approach to storytelling and connecting with young people. At its core, he stated that the first principle—embarrass yourself—is about humility. When Reynolds was working as an interviewer for the nonprofit StoryCorps, he would often put this precept into action by borrowing a trick from Studs Terkel: he pretended to fumble over his recording equipment before starting the interview. This simple action, he said, put interviewees at ease, making them “feel like there were two amateurs in the room.” Reynolds said he aims to bring the same level of humility and empathy to his writing for children.

According to Reynolds, the next rule—create an inside joke—is about building a shared experience, something he strives to do as a writer. “What that’s really about is intimacy,” he said. He offered as an example a moment in When I Was the Greatest, in which the young characters play a game of “Would You Rather.” According to Reynolds, relatable moments like this one pull the reader in because “we all want to believe in the magic of someone knowing what we’re thinking.”

For Reynolds, the final rule is about expressing gratitude. “Gratitude is one of the greatest gifts we can give. And it’s not a gift we often give to children. We expect it of them, but we don’t necessarily give it back,” he said. He stressed the need to say “thank you” to young people “for being who they are and for embodying possibility.” In terms of his own writing, Reynolds said his goal is to make his readers “feel cared for,” and serving all children will always be his top priority. “I have to be a champion for them first.”

Pulling all of these principles together, Reynolds stated that his work—and the work of the children’s book community as a whole—requires “finding love, gratitude, and humility, and checking our judgments.” The author ended with a call to action: “Let’s do this work.”