The Author at Booth Number 12

When I was in fourth grade, we had to do a report on someone we admired. I chose Dr. Jane Goodall. I have written before about eventually meeting her years later in Switzerland and lending her my sneakers for a hike in the Alps, but what has stayed with me all these years isn’t the meeting. It’s the way she moved through the world. She paid attention.

A few months ago, my niece came home with an assignment for school. Her class was hosting an Author’s Fair where each student would choose an author, spend a month researching them, create a display board, and present what they learned. The authors themselves were not allowed to attend, which was apparently devastating news because she had already decided who she was choosing. 

She picked me immediately.

At first, my sister and I both gave her an out. Surely she wanted to choose a “real” author. Someone famous. Someone with a shelf full of books at Barnes & Noble. Someone other than her aunt. She looked at us like we had completely missed the point. She had already talked to her teacher and gotten it approved. I have published books. I’m an author. Decision made.

Over the next month, I’d get occasional phone calls with another question for her project. Most of the real work happened behind the scenes while she quietly built her display board, wrote her report, and prepared for the fair.

The truth is, my niece has been preparing for field research her entire life. She has always been an observer. Not in a casual way, either. In a sit-in-the-bushes-with-a-notebook-for-an-hour kind of way.

A few weeks before the Author’s Fair, we found a baby squirrel in our yard with a crooked tail and a little clubfoot. My husband instantly became emotionally invested in its future. I instantly became concerned about rabies. My niece grabbed a notebook and settled into the evergreens to conduct what can only be described as serious wildlife research.

For over an hour she sat there quietly watching that squirrel move around the yard. She documented every hop, every peanut, every squirrel decision like she was preparing findings for an academic conference. Then it started raining, so I made her move into the garage. The squirrel followed her.

Literally followed her.

The squirrel sat at the edge of the garage drinking rainwater from puddles while she sat two feet away trying to contain the greatest joy she had ever experienced in her life. We discussed rabies. We discussed wildlife. We discussed why squirrels should remain squirrels and not become household projects. She listened carefully to all of it.

Then she picked up the squirrel anyway. The squirrel objected.

I responded by yelling “RABIES! RABIES! RABIES!” loud enough to alert neighboring communities. She got bitten. The squirrel escaped. Everyone survived. Most importantly, she remained completely fascinated by the squirrel afterward. He was waiting in our garage when we came back out from cleaning her hand, like, “Hey, where were you?”

The squirrel story makes me laugh, but it also tells you almost everything you need to know about her. She notices things.

She notices turtles caught in currents. She notices litter blowing into the creek from nearby businesses. She notices tiny flowers emerging through moss and roots exposed after heavy rains. She has spent weeks digging a hole in the woods because she wanted to know what was underneath the surface.

One layer of dirt led to roots. Roots led to tunnels. Tunnels led to bugs. Bugs led to more questions. The deeper she dug, the more curious she became.

Last fall, I watched Dr. Goodall’s documentary Famous Last Words. By the time it ended, I found myself getting a little emotional. She still believed in people. She still believed in children. She still believed that small actions matter.

It brought me right back to the day I met her. Most people assume the thing I remember is lending her my sneakers. It isn’t. What I remember is spending time talking with her.

She was warm and kind, but she was also challenging in a way I wasn’t expecting. She kept asking questions. Why wasn’t I taking certain projects further? What did I want to do after college? What was my plan? It wasn’t judgmental. It felt more like she saw potential and expected me to do something with it.

I remember leaving that day feeling inspired, encouraged, and just a little called out. Like she was gently reminding me that good intentions aren’t the same thing as action.

Watching the documentary all those years later felt strangely familiar. I had been talking about starting a Roots & Shoots group for years. My kids never had much interest, but I knew it was right up my niece and nephews’ alley. Dr. Goodall didn’t give me the idea. She just gave me the same nudge she had given me when I was nineteen.

That night I finally did it.

I started Seedlings, our little Roots & Shoots group. The name felt right. Dr. Goodall had planted a seed years earlier, and after watching the documentary, I realized it was finally time to stop talking about it and start.

Seedlings grew from a simple belief: that small acts rooted in kindness, curiosity, and observation matter. I wasn’t trying to build something big. I just wanted to create a space where kids could pay attention to the world around them, care about it, and maybe leave it a little better than they found it.

Over the last few years, I have watched my niece pick up trash along the creek without being asked. I have watched her free turtles from logs, spend afternoons studying squirrels, and come home covered in mud because she discovered something she needed to investigate. She moves through the woods with curiosity first and judgment second, and there is something beautiful about that.

When the Author’s Fair finally arrived, I wasn’t allowed to attend. She was disappointed about that, and honestly, so was I. Instead, she brought everything home afterward.

There was a display board. There was a report. There was a timeline. And there were bookmarks. Actual bookmarks. Nobody has ever made bookmarks about me before.

One side featured artwork from Willow and the Wandering Thoughts, a story she created and that we’re writing together. The other side included a synopsis, my author bio, and a review.

For a book that hasn’t even been published yet. She gave it four out of five stars. Not five. Four.

Apparently she believes in maintaining editorial standards.

I laughed when I saw them. Then I cried.

Part of it was because she chose me. Part of it was because she had spent a month working on something she was excited to share. But mostly it was because I suddenly found myself seeing a thread I hadn’t noticed before.

I was thinking about sitting at a fourth-grade desk doing a report on Dr. Jane Goodall. I was thinking about the documentary that inspired me to start Seedlings. I was thinking about all the hours my niece and I have spent in the woods, cleaning up creeks, looking for turtles, building forts, and talking about the animals that live there. I was thinking about a little girl sitting in my bushes with a notebook, studying a squirrel with a crooked foot like it was the most important research project in the world.

And I was thinking about how influence travels.

Not through fame. Not through accomplishments. Not through awards.

Through attention. Through stories. Through time spent together. Through creek walks, conversations, muddy shoes, and afternoons in the woods.

I don’t know what my niece will become when she grows up. I don’t know where her curiosity will lead her or what questions she will spend her life trying to answer. I just know that I feel incredibly lucky that I get to watch it happen.

Because every once in a while she does something that reminds me of why I chose Dr. Jane Goodall all those years ago. And when that happens, I realize that maybe the most important thing we pass from one generation to the next isn’t knowledge.

Maybe it’s curiosity.

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