Episode #177: Feeney Talks with Heather Moran

#BeAGoodFriend and check out episode #177 of #FeeneyTalksWithFriends featuring Heather Moran.

It was great to talk with my #friend, Heather. 

Heather is the owner of The Book Club. 

We talked about:
The Book Club is right above Bricco (minute 1)
Heather’s teaching career  (minute 2.30)
Harry Potter Camp & Open Drop Off (minute 4)
Storytelling classes (minute 5.30)
Reading Bingo Game collaboration with Luna Pizza (minute 6.30)
The Secret Sauce (minute 9)
Heather book, “Connected: What Every Kid Should Read Before Their First Phone” (minute 12) 
Mr. Feeney’s Book Projects (minute 15)
Book Events: First, Last, Best, Worst (minute 18)
“Good Friend” Moments at The Book Club (minute 22)
4 Keys to owning The Book Club (minute 25) 
Heather’s favorite restaurant, Bricco (minute 28)
“Parenting with Picture Books” Class (minute 31)
Mo Willems is alive! (minute 33) 
Book recommendations (minute 36)
Brett and Thai are JCC Legends (minute 38)
Birthday parties and Wishes Character Company (minute 42)
The Mom Book Club (minute 44)
Upcoming events and memberships  (minute 45)
FREE CLASS PROMO CODE!! (minute 48)
Recommendations, The Next Chapter (minute 50)
Book Trivia (minute 53)
Closing remarks (minute 55)

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Luna Pizza - www.lunapizzawh.com/lunas-menu
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Float 41 - www.float41.com
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Mandell JCC of Greater Hartford - www.mandelljcc.org
American Eagle Financial Credit Union - www.americaneagle.org

Creators and Guests

Host

Eric Feeney

After teaching for nearly a decade at his alma mater in Waterbury, in 2014, Eric Feeney began teaching at Wolcott Elementary in West Hartford. Shortly following, Sam Sohn, the father of one of his students, passed away suddenly from a heart attack. He left behind four beautiful children and a loving wife, Nancy Wallace-Sohn. Eric saw first-hand the toll this took on the family as they navigated their way through this unthinkable tragedy. The following year, Rashad Collier Sr., another father of a student in Eric’s class, passed away in Hartford as a result of gun violence. Rashad left behind two fantastic children and a loving wife, Denise Villegas. The impact of these tragedies weighed on Eric and motivated him to build an organization that could provide assistance for similar situations. With that, Friends of Feeney was born. In 2019, Friends of Feeney Inc. became an official 501©(3) nonprofit organization, allowing more funds to be raised and expanding the range of services provided to children and families in need. Today, over a decade since Eric’s idea to build a community organization dedicated to supporting our friends in need, Friends of Feeney has burgeoned into a reputable and recognized organization capable of providing financial and resource support to numerous families and individuals across greater Hartford and beyond. Through this work, an incredible community of children and families has been recognized, who care for and appreciate each other’s kindness.

Producer

David Chmielewski

David started his video career in the early 1990s working on video crews as an independent contractor for such companies as Martha Stewart Living, IBM and Xerox. After graduating Southern Connecticut State University with the degree in Corporate Communications, David continued his video production career and accepted a position at WFSB in Hartford, CT. Within a few years the news and production studios became his charge and David designed, installed and maintained the televisions sets for the various programs at the station. At the end of 2013 David founded DirectLine Media, a video production company that specializes in creating memorable and compelling video content for businesses.

Editor

Stefania Sassano

Stefania's acting journey began as early as the fourth grade, where she took on the role of Scarlett O'Hara in a stage production of Gone With the Wind. This early experience sparked a lifelong passion for the arts. With a background in musical theater fueled by her love of music and singing, Stefania stepped into larger roles, such as Fraulein Kost in Cabaret during her sophomore year at the University of New Haven. This performance earned her a nomination for the prestigious Irene Ryan Acting Award at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival—an honor she would receive again in her junior year.

What is Feeney Talks With Friends?

Eric Feeney talks with #friends! Eric is the founder of the nonprofit organization Friends of Feeney. Their mission is to help children and families who need assistance after heartbreak and tragedy. www.friendsoffeeney.com

All right, all right.

Feeny talks with friends.

This is episode 177.

My name is Eric Feeny, founder
and president of Friends of Feeny.

Our mission is to help

children and families that need assistance
after heartbreak or tragedy.

And I use this podcast.

Feeny talks with friends,

and I talk to a wonderful people in
the community that are doing great things.

And today, I want a wonderful guest.

Heather, how you doing?

Heather I'm great.
Thank you for having me. Heather.

From the book club, the book club. Yep.

76 LaSalle road,

right above you. Smell that?

You smell like garlic. Yeah.

Flatbread. Garlic.

Yeah. Do you get it for lunch a lot?

We do.

Parents night out.

Oh, club and

nice.

Nice?

Yeah. Nice.

So super cool.

You're at the book club.

Tell our listeners about the book club.

So also started to find
that my own three children

were getting reading logs coming home,
and we're pushing back against

doing their reading logs, and it kind of
started to feel like a chore.

And I was like,
this cannot be good for what I do.

So I created a neighborhood book club

and it got really popular,
and my kids loved it.

And it was really just this idea

of bringing social experience
to kids around books.

And there's some magic in that.

Kids are around other kids

and their diving into books,
but then also doing activities around it.

They like, just love it.

And I had kids knocking down the door
to come and be a part of this neighborhood

book club and thought,
man, I'd love to see how we can get

more of the community in on this,
because it really transformed my kids

to the point where they're like

sneaking books into their bed at night
with flashlights and their readers now,

and I think it had little to do with me
or me telling them, hey,

reading, it's all about the experience.

Oh, yeah.

Third grade teacher.

So I'm all about making reading fun.

And I had two daughters or in college now,
but I read to them every day

and we just made books fun.

I'm totally for that.
So I think that's amazing.

Yeah.
Let's talk about your teaching career.

Where where were you teaching?
What were you teaching?

And I was in inner city first.

Nice.

And so I spent area for a while.

And then. Wow.

So you.

This is the book clubs whole theme.

Make reading fun, enjoyable.

Kids are learning from other kids
and reading

and what I saw.

Our kids are loving it,
but our moms are loving it just as much.

Maybe even a little bit more.

We've just, like, made
such a strong community of like minded,

wonderful people.

We have moms book club, we do moms events.

And we have lots of kids events.

But I think the magic is
we try to make them,

like,
really memorable experiences for our kids

because as moms, we find ourselves
being like the memory makers.

How do we make childhood magical?

And we're like, right alongside
all our moms doing that from like,

reading The Gingerbread Man and then
making gingerbread houses on Halloween.

Things we try to do, things
that kids are going to walk away.

Not only saying like that was super fun,
but memorable too.

Very cool. Yeah.

Beautiful location. It's colorful. Bright.

You have a Harry Potter room,
which I thought was amazing.

How was Harry Potter week?

That was.

That was over in August I visited. Yeah.

You had a camp or. Excuse me? Camp? Yeah.

We had three weeks of Harry Potter for the

the little ones in the morning,
and we do our camps in August.

A lot of the camps shut down,
and then parents are like,

what am I going to do in August
till it's time to go back to school?

So it was the perfect time
to help our families out and get them back

into the idea of getting back to books,
right where they go back to school.

Yeah.

And then I saw a parent do the drop off,
and again, I saw that community.

She was a teacher. She loved reading.

She was going to run an errand
and she wanted some, some peace of mind.

So you drop off your child.

Do you have open
drop off all day, every day?

How does that work?

Yeah, we do drop off our kiddos
who are 3 or 4 years old up.

And then for our littles, we'll do, like,

caregiver and meat classes where they get
to be a part of the magic with the kids.

But yeah,
and we also try to stack them, right.

So we have classes
where they might come in

and do one block,
and then they'll stay for the next block.

And specifically for older kiddos,
one of the things

that we're really excited
about now is we have,

and so that

one's cool because just thinking about AI,
right?

And like,
kids are going to have all of these

the answers
right at their fingertips all the time.

And what's going to set them apart and be
a differentiator for when they're older.

And it's like, can you tell a story?

Can you read a room?

Can you be eloquent
in the way that you speak?

And so we designed that class
called storytellers.

Where they come in, they hear a story,
but then they have to go and retell it.

And then each week we give them
like a different thing to work on.

It might be gestures, it might be adding
detail when you're telling a story.

And we build on it every week.

And kids
think that they're just having fun, but

really they're building those public
speaking skills at an early age.

Which, man, I wish I had that. What?
I was a kid.

So we have classes like that
where you might do a regular

little league class,
which is just one of our standard classes.

And then you do that after,

and then you can drop your kids off
for two hours and get stuff done.

Yeah. Go around to the center. Yeah.

No, I'm very excited at being a teacher.

I love this activity.

You're doing great things.

You collaborated with Luna Pizza.

I saw that you had.

You're bringing back, like, the Pizza
Hut book club or Book It program.

Yeah. That was so cool. Yeah. Yeah.

And there's nothing
better than a free pizza.

And my students, current

third grade students are using that,
so they just got a couple bingos.

So, Alex, it will be seeing some students.

So I love that idea. So wonderful.

Heather.

No pizza.
He goes they get the whole thing.

So yeah, really generous
and really nice of him.

Alex episode 70.

Go back and check it out.

I do a pizza review
like the Barstool guy at the beginning,

and then I make a pizza
with Alex during the podcast.

We also love Farmington.

Have people needed pizza to us?

Nice Wednesday. Okay, we could have.

We had a class called Pizza and Pages,
which was so fun.

He's all about reading over there too.

And so our parents
got to drop their kids off.

They were fed.

We send them home, fed and read and fed
and read.

Ready for bed. Bed. Ready for bed.

Where is this pizza? In Farmington.

Farmington Avenue by,

CBS pick and mix.

Farmington. And he's wonderful.

And it's good.

Down by stop and shop.

Yes. Across the street from stop and shop.

No kids. Stand by. Oh, cool.

Never had it.
I'm interested. I'll have to check it out.

What's. What's it called?

Farmington pizza.

Farmington. Have shout out to Farmington.

But yeah. Luna again being generous.

And he is always helping
friends of Feeney.

He's donated to our raffle at the
at the golf event.

So he's just a great guy.

A lot of great people in West Hartford.

I was going to say after opening one away.

Yeah. Super cool.

I Wolcott School,
where I teach third grade,

we do something called Town Meeting where
students share and speak in front of on.

On Fridays, they'll write a piece
and they'll read it in front of someone.

So that again, it helps with the public
speaking storytelling.

And you're doing that.

I like that
that you're doing that there, too.

And how is this,

you know, people think, oh, it's a library
or a it's a book club.

Do we go?

It's not right.

It's it's not.

But then always pairing it
with an experience.

So I have three kids.

Like we're going to yoga.
We're going to art.

We're going to music.

We're going to all these different places
and building these little communities.

But I was like, how cool would it be
if you could get all of those experiences

under one roof?

The same community can start to build
like real relationships.

And so what we do is we pair a book

with a story inspired enrichment activity
so we don't do it in a way

where it's like every Mondays art,
every Tuesday is science.

We did it in a way where it's every week
is something new, so that you rotate

each week and kids
get exposed to all different modalities.

So one week they might be cooking
and reading a story, the next week

they might be doing a science experiment
and reading a story

that's very aligned to the story.

And I think what's nice about that is it
helps kids

become well-rounded and experience things
they might not try otherwise.

Right?

A kiddo might say,
I've never done a music class like this,

but I'll give it a try
because I really like the story.

And so it exposes them to a lot of
different modalities, to just help them

be more well-rounded and experience
some different things with other kiddos.

I love it.

Yeah, very excited to be talking with you.

I appreciate the tour.

And, you know,
I hope for future collaborations,

I would love to come and do a read aloud
there.

Put me on the calendar. Come on.

Not Tuesdays with Morrie.

It'd be Fridays with Feeny. Fridays.

Let's do it.

Sign me up.

Yeah.

No. I want to shout out some authors,
some podcast guests

we have already talked about.

Alex was episode 70.

We had some books.

The Nacho King came on.

He just wrote a book.

Dave Oliver, diabetes with Dave.

He wrote a book.

Gillian Gilchrist wrote a book.

Doctor Susan. Averno.

Addison McKnight.

Have you heard of them?

She's actually mom's book club.

Yes. Yeah. You're reading it right now.

So you're doing the Martha's
Vineyard one, right?

Yeah.

The vineyard remains.

I read the first one.

Shoot, I guess I should have prepped, but
I read the whole book, and I was ready.

It was episode 49.
Go back and check it out.

Yeah, I know
they're coming in a couple of weeks. Yeah.

They're good. Good peoples.

Christina Connors wrote a book.

She went to Wolcott School,

and now she's a singer and a,

you know, advocate for being kind.

And then Matt Dix.

Do you know Matt Dix?

He was a retired teacher
from Wolcott School.

He was episode one.

So go back and check out eppo.

And then Seth Wickersham, ESPN reporter,

wrote about a book about Tom Brady
and now quarterbacks.

He was on episode seven and 169.

So two time
guess I just want to shout out some.

I do have any plans or aspirations
of writing a book.

Actually.
Did you did. Yeah, yeah. Come on.

And it was really just,
So we have a class

and it's coming tweens who are thinking
about getting cell phones.

Okay.

And like,

we put our kids through driver's ed
before they ever get behind the wheel.

But we'll also

just hand over a cell phone to a kid
and they might not be ready for it.

I don't think anyone really is
ever ready for it, but,

I wanted to do a book club specifically
for kids who have just got a cell phone,

or they're thinking about
getting a cell phone in their families.

Want to help them get down the right path
so that they're ready for it?

And I looked for a book that would,
you know, kind of work

as like a workbook, a guided handbook
that we can do alongside the kids.

And I couldn't find one,
so I just did one myself.

This is your book.

This is my book.

And we'll be using that in October,

which I

think for tweens will be really awesome.

And how about this?

Because, right now
we have a lot of young kids

coming into the book club,
but I think we there's such an opportunity

for our nine, ten, 11, 12 year olds,

to start coming together and building
their own really important things, like,

how do you stay connected
in the real world?

Yeah.

Someone says that's like the end
of childhood when you give a kid a phone.

Childhood over.

I had my girls wait till eighth grade.

I don't know if that people think
that's pretty late.

I have third graders with phones.

Not this year, but in years past.

Yeah. Oh, I love this.
This is really good.

And this is really important.

And I've heard that driver's ed talk.

That is so true.

Consider this your driver's ed. Like,
you just.

You can't give them the world with. No.

You need structure, boundaries.

Yeah, rules. And if.

When did you write this?

Last year
when I was putting the class together. So.

Man.

Really informative.

I like it
nonfiction. Like. Yeah, colorful.

I can really write it in a way a guide.

If you wanted to start your own
book club in your community.

Yeah.

Very cool, very cool. I like it a lot.

I, I highly suggest our listeners
connected what every kid should read

before their first phone.

This is Heather Moran.

It's on Amazon.

How much is it?

Perfect.

Perfect.

Wow. See,
I didn't know that. And here we go.

You wrote a book?

No. I like to make books fun.

I'm wearing a shirt.

As a third grader, I do book projects.

Now, what do you think about this?

So it's not book reports.

If you're doing,
you could do an illustration,

a comic strip, write a letter to a friend
suggesting

they read it, pretend
you're a reporter, a in a newsletter.

Write a newsletter about the book.

Make a commercial for it.

Make a t shirt for it.

So this was a student Robby wrote.

Read a book about kids. Me? Look at that.

Third grade.

What a great job that we're getting that
he needs to start a business.

Yeah, I'll grab one of those, too.

Yeah, but we got some other ones.

I just we got a couple.

Dog man.

Dog man's popular.
What's your feeling on graphic novels?

I love it, right.

I think if kids are picking up books
and they're excited about it. Why?

Who are we to tell them what to eat?
I'm with you.

A couple of years ago when I.

When graphic novels came around,
they were like, no, we're gonna.

That's not real reading.

So I had two baskets
in my classroom library.

Now I'm to ten baskets of graphic novels.

And again, the kids
sometimes can't put them down.

Yeah, we'll take it.

So we did, dog man.

Oh, I love it. Dog man one.

Dog. Man two.

So good dog. Man three.

Maybe we could do a.

Hey, we'll have to start
selling your merch.

Yeah.

The students? Nope. Actually.

So students make themselves a shirt.

I threw in a little line for extra credit.

If you make Mr. Feeny a shirt size large.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So your whole work.

So, Mr. Feeny?

Yeah. We got the sisters.

Oh, cool. Yeah.

You know.

Oh, your teaching style.

Make it fun. Make it fun. Engaging.

Pardon me.

I'm always getting them up
for brain breaks.

We got to be kids.
Can't sit for six hours.

It's impossible.
I can't sit for six hours.

I can't even sit for six minutes.

But I want to.

When you're a teacher
and you're doing PD, right?

Like the first couple weeks of school,

you're like, getting in PD
and you're like, oh, tomorrow?

And then you're just gonna sit back
and think, hey,

our kids are going through the same thing
every day.

How do we get them out of their seat
having fun?

How do we make this fun and engaging?

Because,
you know, as adults, it's hard to do.

Yeah, absolutely. A couple more
I want to share.

This is one of the greatest books.

I just finished it today.

Stone Fox.

Oh. Highly recommend stone Fox,
one of the best books you can ever read

in front of a group of students.

And the kid wrote the book. Searchlight.

Spoiler.

Poor searchlight.

Gets me every time.

Searchlight

y. Searchlight.

Little willie.

Oh, it's tough to read those
in front of the kids.

I can see it.

Oh, yeah.

This year didn't get me, but one year
I was like, yeah, like, Mr.

Feeny, are you okay?

And then Harry Potter. Julia,

this is a classic.

She's like in high school now.

She's actually the connection of why
I'm here at Maximum Beverage.

Oh, cool.

It's it's the the granddaughter
of the owner and grandson of Grand.

Whatever. Julia. Good. Peoples.

So let's play a game.

It's called first, last, best, worst.

Some book events at the book club.

Your first book event. Your last.

Your best one in your worst.

When something went
wrong or missing. So. Yeah.

My first one

since I used to be a teacher.

I just recruited all my old teacher
friends to come up and read stories

with me.

Shout out to Denver Morris.

She came up and read,
and it was a cool way to just kind of

get people to come up
and see where the book club is,

because oftentimes people are like,
where are you located?

It's kind of hard to find.

And so it was a nice way
to get people up and nice

just kind of see the

look of it.

That might have been mom's book club.

We read yesteryear,
which is about a trad wife.

So like a homestead wife and makes her own
butter and sourdough and all that.

So we literally made our own butter.

Oh, yeah.

Had some. Saw that Instagram. Nice.

We have a good, really good book club
and that's open for everyone.

But there's it's. Oh, members are members.

We have a big group of moms
that come in the vineyard.

Nice. That's the next one.

And we go right

into the family room.

The hospital. That's amazing.

One of the best days of my life
honestly agreed to partner with us.

So we are reading stories to the kiddos
and families, right?

Sometimes they come in with their moms or

whoever's with them,
and we do the activities together, and

that's so cool.

So if kids can't make it, they can still
listen in and watch and they can text in.

So if I do like a trivia about the book
we just read,

they can text in their answers
so they can feel connected.

And it's really cool
what they're doing over there.

I had no idea until the invited me in
and I took the tour and

just an amazing group of people,
and that they enjoy to these kids

as we collaborate with the Sunshine,
the Sunflower Kids, we have donated

socks and clothing and gift cards
and just CMC's amazing place.

Yeah.

Alex donates pizzas there sometimes Luna
or a lot of people.

Zephyrs donates pizzas there.

But yes,
you see, is great people in our community.

Oh, yeah.

First, then next.

Last. You killed it.

Oh, oh.

Are you ready for this one?

What we're doing?

Probably digging
for dinosaur bones or something.

And then we pull up the bubbles

fast, slip and slide.

So we have kids slipping and sliding.

I can never flood the bubbles.

When do you have the tarp out?

Yeah. Little slip and slide action.
That's fun.

It's like a Double dare
physical challenge.

You mentally challenging.

We can make that a book club event.

Yeah, or so our models.

Be a good friend, right?

Hold the door.

Pick up trash. I don't have a
I don't have a magnet.

I gave you a magnet once.

Right. It's at the store. Yep.

Be a good friend. Hold the door.

Pick up trash. Be charitable.

Give compliments.

What are some friendship
building moments that you've had?

Some of your book clubs.

Maybe with a mom or some.

Yeah.

And she, like.

I'm an educator,
I miss or anything like that.

But she have been to Shark Tank now.

Oh, okay. Famous jeweler.

Yeah.

And she like, has just been. So

it's just like.

Yeah, it was kind of connection.

Is she and your team
now that she worked there?

I think she was there
that day that I was there.

She might have been there.

Former educator or. No. No.

Yeah. Okay.

So was it Brooke or Brittany? They.

Maybe it was Brittany.
We got a lot of bees. We got a Brooke.

Also Hartford.

I was her coach when she was a teacher.

And the second I opened the book club,
she's like, maybe that's who I met.

Yeah. Okay.

We have a wonderful team,

who are just so generous
and always coming up with ideas

and volunteering to help out.
And they don't mean to.

And just like making the commune.

It's.

That's one of the things
I always knew, that social life. Now,

just whatever's happening at the book
club is what I'm doing.

Love it.

All right,
let me thank some sponsors we're here at.

Well, first I got foremost.
I got to thank Direct Line Media.

Thank you, Stefania and Dave.

Thank you. Maximum beverage.

Maximum beverage is.

We'll have a whiskey hole at our
our golf event on Saturday.

Max Maxim beverage is also hosting
their whiskey fest.

It's like their 12
their 15th annual Whiskey Fest friends

and has been the beneficiary for the
maybe the past eight years.

An amazing places that tumble brook.

It's on September 26th.

Is that a is that a Saturday?

September 26th is a Saturday.

It's at tumble Brook, 200 whiskeys.

So go check it out.

Also people's Bank, American Eagle
financial credit Union, Keating Agency

insurance, the JCC Sally and Bob's

Luna Pizza
float, 41 and Parkville Management

and New England Door and Security,
formerly known as West Hartford Lock.

So with that with West Hartford Lock,
what are three keys

that make you great at being the owner
and founder of the book club?

I love kids, boom.

I love books, boom.

And I'm not afraid of kids.

Give me some, I love it. Great answer.

That's third grade.

Teaching is all about kids.

Not afraid to make a fool yourself.

Because you will, right?

They'll call you out on it.

Got a sing? Got a dance?

Gotta try.

You know something?
Yeah. You gotta keep it fresh.

I like stop.

So. That's great.

That was good. Three keys.

What if you had a fourth key?

Be a good friend.

Be a good friend.

Be a good friend.

With all this teacher talk,
I ask every podcast guest.

Favorite teacher.

Do you have a favorite teacher
that you can remember?

This might be a controversial one because
you get this a lot when you're a teacher.

Everybody asks you. When you're a teacher,

have one. Whoa.

And it's because.

And so I felt like
sometimes I was floating under everybody.

Yeah.

So it's actually it's a it's
really changed who I am as a teacher

because I really try to connect
with every single kid.

Nice quiet one.

Yeah, yeah, the energetic ones.

And I think that's helped to shape me
as a teacher, had a lot of great teachers,

but none that are like,
stand out because it's the connection.

You just need to have the connection.
Yeah. Yep.

Building rapport.

I think, as Rita Wilson gave a TEDx talk.

Kids don't learn from our kids
don't learn from people they don't like.

So you know that one. Of course you do.

It's a great TEDx

talk, and it's like, build a relationship
first and good things will happen.

And that's what it's all about right
now, this time of year.

Yeah. You know,
we're all about it first couple of weeks.

Icebreakers, group activities, scavenger
hunts.

You know,
keeping it fun, keeping it light.

So great.

What school system did you grow?

Are you West Hartford?

Hampshire. Oh, new Hampshire.

Manchester, New Hampshire.
Yeah. Nice. Okay.

All right.

What about college?

Stonehill College.

All right. Yeah.

Yep. My girls looked at that.

Oh, yeah. We got.

We got a t shirt
in the House of Stonehill. Purple. Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

What about favorite restaurant?

Oh, I'm also, like,
most popular answer on this show.

It's a very popular answer.

And selfishly,

that was that was the next.

Chicken mornings they have this new one.

I always go off to Instagram
whatever Billy shows and he's like,

oh yeah, but he's doing like a beef
cut one or a, right now.

So I'm gonna go try that.

But the parking lot. So I should ask him.
What's that?

Ask him. Yeah, definitely.

He's supposed to be a podcast guest,
so we'll see.

I want to cook with Billy in the back.
That would be right.

That would be really. What?

What books do
you think Billy likes to read?

I know that book.

Yeah.

Oh, who is that?

That's, Don't tell me the author,
Patricia Polanco.

No, Tommy.

Oh. You're right.

Oh. The illustration. But you're right.

There is has that theme from Patricia,

my picture books.

Oh, that's that's that's coming up.

Yeah, we could do that game one day. Two.
Oh, it's happening today.

I have it, it's ready. Are you ready?

You want to do it now,
or should we wait until later?

So no favorite restaurant?

All right, so we're gonna.

I usually ask for guests, dead or alive.

Who are your. For guests?

But I might change it today

because of who we are and what you do.

We're going to do.

Fictional characters in books.

Who would you love to have dinner with?

Aparicio for four.

For fictional characters. Okay.

Hello?

Oh, wait.

Who did you just say? Hold on a second.

Whoa whoa whoa.

I mean, classics, right?

We just went to the field trip
Playhouse on Park.

Had Piggy and Gerald went to.

Yeah, yeah.

That's a good one.

Did you go as your
your children, children or your class?

We went.

Kids. Nice. Yeah. Cool.

That was fun.

Oh, yeah.

Love to book.

I always tease my daughters.

I go, what kind of kids are reading books?

Get in front of the TV like your dad.

Classic.

So good. Oh.

So bad. It's classic.

That's. That's my guy.

Danny DeVito.

Danny DeVito.

I was going to mess that up and say
Joe Pesci.

Oh, my God, it's so good.

Yeah.

So, yeah, we got Matilda, piggy,
Gerald, and Harry Potter.

Yeah. Which one? Hermione. Of course.

She's a hair rod.

She is? Yeah.

Do you have any book recommendations?

Oh. Do you.

You brought a pile. I do.

We actually, we have a really cool class.

Please.

It's called parenting with pictures.

It's a way to give in creep rhythm.

Right.

So, like,
a kid might be struggling with sharing.

And if you can read the story
like we have, should I share my ice cream?

Right.

And if you can then give it
some shared language and say like,

are you having like a Gerald ice cream
moment? Right.

If a kid can connect back
to something that they read.

Oh, yeah.

Has a moral that they can understand.

I mean, it's genius.

And we have a teacher
who just did this lesson with the kids.

She read the story,
we talked about sharing,

and then after she said,
let's do an art project.

And so she just put out for the amount
of kids there, half of the materials.

And I was like, let's paint.

But we only have this many paint brushes
and this much paint.

Like, what do we do now?

And then they connected back to the story
and they were like, well, in the story

he did this. Okay,
I think I'm going to share. Right.

Like and so when you can take a book

like this that teaches like,
you know, social skills,

life lessons, those kinds of things,
and give it shared language

and then allow kids to
I call it touchtone texts.

I don't know, like a book
that's in your library

that you keep coming back
to as a family or a class and you can say,

are you having a sticking stone moment?

Right? Like, are you being a pine cone?

He's the villain of the story,
right? He's not Connie. Right.

And so when kids can come back
and say like, oh, yeah, like

two weeks later, two, I'm saying,
this is good call back to this, I like it.

Yeah.

Keep coming back to those characters
that they can actually understand

because for kids, hard to comprehend.

Yeah.

And when they can

then put some shared language
and even a character like a face to it,

it makes it so much easier
for them to understand.

So we come together with a bunch of moms
the moms give us, like,

what's the next thing that you guys
want to tackle together?

Last week
they were all like, it's whining.

Like, we need to learn about whining.

And so I'm on the hunt right now
for a really good book about whining,

but so that we can all come together
and, like, practice it together.

Yeah.

The characters in the story
be something kids come back to when they

that moment arises again,
making it real, I like that.

Where was I going with that?

Mo. Williams.

Williams.
Yeah. Yeah. Lived in Connecticut.

Passed away in Wilton, Connecticut.

Yeah. He's very much alive. Is he?

Oh, boy.

I'm on a strike, too.
Who am I thinking of?

No. You sure?

You sure?

We're going to Google that.

Come on, Google that somewhere.

No, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Who didn't pass?

Oh, wait. Who wrote? Oh, geez.

Strike two.

Strike three. Earlier.

Who? What about. Oh,

Eric Carle, are you thinking of that?

No. No, no.

The monster, the kid.

He's the monsters.

He got punished in his room,
and he used his imagination.

Where the wild things are.

Yeah. Who wrote that? Maurice deck.

Darn it!

Darn it!

You're good.

You're good. I like this, this is good.
This is good.

We should have a challenge.

I like it. Keep it coming. Let's go. Well.

Yeah.

Oh, well. Yeah. He's. He's alive. Guys!

He's alive. He's alive! Happily.

Yeah.

Sorry, sorry.

Didn't mean to scare anybody.

Oh, the rabbit who listened.

Oh, that's another thing to shoot.

This is good.

Talking with parents in common areas like.

And being an educator.

You have that the the advantage of like

when it when you just say behave to a kid.

Yeah.

They don't get that.

They don't process behave.

But if you said hey, you know,

be nice, hug
your bunny like this guy did in this story

or, you know, and they can connect to the
why then, right?

Yeah.

Sometimes we can give them rationale
and say,

don't do this because and it's like,
okay, save the Ted talk, mom.

But when you can go back and say like,
well, what happened to this character?

Like, do you want that to happen to you?

Like, how do you think they felt right
when kids can really connect with story?

Story is the magic source for parenting.

You think when you can come back
to these touchstone texts

where you can say, like, man,
we want to include all our friends, right?

Like, can you imagine what it feels like
to not be included?

Remember the elephant, right?

Like then perfect for recess.

Resonate with that.

Perfect for recess.

Perfect
for beginning of the school year. Yep.

Yeah.

No, I think I think it's the magic source
for parenting and classroom management.

Yeah. Or like,

I like how you're being good, right?

Or they don't know. Good.

You know?

You know,
I like how you're being a good listener.

Right. Be a little more specific.

Like you're
you using your listening in years.

Yeah.

Oh, you got some good books here.

These are some things very much alive.

He's alive.

Guys. Oh,

he'll be happy to know.

Don't send him this.

Don't send him this.

He'll be a future podcast guest.

I'm alive.

Oh, great.

What do I have?

I talked about Stone Fox.

Love it.

Christina. And the love bugs.

We can be kind.

There's a song that goes with it.

This is my guy. Daniel M Howell

for bees.

You know, he wrote a routine about bath
brush book bed. Oh.

That's genius.

Oh, I love it. And then, you know, we get
we get signed books, too.

So, to the friends of Feeny.

Welcome to the be me.

What?

What is she? Right.

Thank you for being your kindness. You.

And this is.

I just met this guy to Malik.

He's awesome.

Oh, cool. We did a, at Parkville Market.

We did a backpacks,
books and barbers event.

We gave out 400 backpacks
and did almost 50 haircuts.

And this guy coincidentally came
and did a whole book

about, your crown and how it makes
you feel good and confident.

And he wrote, you know, to Mr.

Feeny class.

Thanks for your support.

Love your hair. That's awesome. Very cool.

So send them my way.

Oh, okay.

Sometimes, once they set up their spot,
they have their books out, and then they.

You can come in through the book fair and
then listen to a story from the author.

Ask the author questions.
It's really cool.

We're doing it. We're doing it.

And I wanted to give you a sponsor JCC

free week, but I guess you don't need it.

This is my guy right here.

Do you know him?

That's Brett.

I just hung out with Brett at Old
Orchard Beach.

Oh. Cool man.

Maine? Yep.

We got our first boom
hears us on Old Orchard Beach.

Boom. Me and Brett and his dad, Kevin.

He's also here.

He's famous.

He's on the walls of JCC
when you walk up, right?

I've seen him.

He's all over the famous
tie ties, a legend.

This guy's just famous ties.

Also in the JCC Hall of Fame.

I'm not surprised.

Yeah, Ty
just put up 70 in a in a game, too.

So that at all, guys. Good.

Oh, yeah.

Ty is great. What's your son's name?

So we have.

How old is he?

Okay.

Oh, nice.

We have a three on three basketball
tournament in March.

I think it's eight and up.

Or it could be nine and up,
but Hayes is in.

How do you spell Hayes?

HAYESHAYESEJYES.

Cool.

I like it.

Never heard that one. I'm
a teacher. 23 years.

Hayes. I like it because I'm a teacher.

I tried to come up with names like,
you know, you get.

Oh, yeah.

The same names coming through.

Is that a boxer?

I have a Neela and a Bridget.

Never had those.

Yeah. Never had an Eric either.

Never know.

Had a Heather.

I was going to say had an Ashley, but

let's not go there.

Blooper reel.

Yeah.

No. And, man, you caught me off guard.

I'm going to be an author.

You said yes.

Yeah.

And you're already an author.

I love it.

Have you done book talks or a set up
a booth or, you know,

did a book tour?

No, no. It's more.

I did it more for information.

The class just.

Yeah. Nice. No.

You have a great support system,
then with the group.

How big is the mom club?

The moms book club.

Yeah, we have to cap it

because we're not a huge space,
so we, you know, we have, like, 16 spots.

We all kind of.

Sometimes there's a wait list,
but we might have to start doing

two book clubs a month. Nice.

What were a couple of the books you did?

The you just yesteryears? We did.

I remember the others.

And what's the wine of choice? You know,

the problem is, is we keep doing

dense
or in this kind of pop it everywhere.

Yeah. Nice.

Now, do you make mimosas
or are you just straight up champagne? No.

But now that you say
that you have to start at.

These moms work hard.

They deserve on the side. Yes. Yeah.

You could have a man, Mosa.

What's that?

Just.

You make them mimosa with a little splash.

Avoca. Oh, okay.

Get all your supplies here. Yeah.

Welcome to maximum.

Maximum beverage I could have had.

Almost ready for you.

Oh, we can get you one right now.

Yeah.

What's your favorite thing
about West Hartford?

Do you.

Your kids are in the West Hartford
schools.

You're West Hartford schools?

Yep. We're.

We're looking for a place
with a good community and great schools.

And we like to be able
to go to different restaurants

and that sort of thing
and think the community is wonderful.

And our kids have amazing friends.

Like, as a local

business owner, when you like,
the landscape is so inviting,

like people are there to support you
and, you know,

bringing each other up,
collaborating how people are.

Yeah, they're very supportive
of friends of Feeney.

Bought into our mission, helps
us, helps us donate and host events.

Yeah. Great.

I moved here too.

Same thing. We lived in New Haven.

My wife got pregnant with twins, and
we're like, where are we going to live?

We were in education.

I she I'm from Waterbury.

She's miss Hartford.

We moved to West Hartford.

Perfect.

I was like,
I don't want to be in West Hartford.

Greatest move I've ever made. Yeah.

You know, look at me now.

We're in a kid shirt

talking with you.

How many birthday parties have you hosted?

We also have

partners in.

Read the story as a princess.

And then kids dance with the kids.

And they.

You couldn't pay for that at Disney World,
right?

Like to be able to spend that much quality
one on one time with a princess

straight out of a storybook. It's
been amazing.

She's wonderful, has a beautiful voice.

And like when I tell you, Brittany

and I will will help
host some of these parties,

and we're sitting in the back
like crying, watching these kids

just light up, being like,
my gosh, Belle came to my birthday party.

It's like, it's so magical.

We also do a Harry Potter birthday,
which you saw the Harry Potter room.

Nice. Yeah. Very nice.

Which we have some big Harry
Potter fans in West Hartford,

and they're coming in
and making potions and,

you know, doing spells with each other,
and it's a lot of fun.

And you had the hat.

You had things dangling off.

Yeah. Hanging off the wall.

Everything on the shelf.

Like for the Halloween stroll this year

around the Halloween

stroll, we're going to invite families
to come up with the hat,

get sorted into their house
and get a little somewhere into.

So people who are walking, you know, trick
or treating for the Halloween

stroll will get to come up to the book
club. Nice. See what they are.

Speaking of

Halloween, what other upcoming events
do you have?

We have another author's coming in.

So the book club,

the expectation is to have read the book
by the time you come to the club.

It's not like, hey, read chapters one
and two will meet chapters three and four.

We meet.

Yeah,
we usually our mom give ourselves a month.

Oh, gotcha.

Through as much of the book as we can,
you know, our lives are busy.

So as long as we at least got the gist,
we're good and we can talk about it.

Some of us finish it, some of us
don't. That's okay.

I mean, there's still wine regardless.

And conversation.

We also have parents.

Night parents. Go out.

Have yourself a day.

The kids are going to come
and take pumpkins.

We'll have a Halloween.

The other thing

about Halloween is you buy
these expensive costumes, and your kid.

Where is it? Yeah.

And so we're trying to get maximum usage
out of those costumes.

So we're also going to have a class,
special event class where kids can come in

wearing their costume.

Trick
or treat at the book club kind of thing.

So October is going to be really fun,
fun, fun.

Yeah.

This is air just in time.

Anything I missed about the book club
you want to share?

I love the fact that you're doing comedy.

That was amazing.

Birthdays are starting book clubs.

Halloween.

What about November? December?
What have we got?

Anything fun? So. November.

What we really try to do is, again,
have when you come in and you're.

You could drop into a class for sure,
or you could become a member.

And we care a lot about giving our members

so they can jump in on it.

You might be a mom
who comes to mom's book club,

and you could use your class credit
for that.

Or you might decide,
I want to do, a kid event.

And so in November December,
we'll have Thanksgiving themed events.

We'll have

Lee's coming to the book club.

Bluey.

Is your friend.

That's the princess going to be Elsa.

Sure. It's. She's amazing. Let it go.

Let it go.

Don't hold it back anymore.

I could be Elsa.

That goes around West Hartford Center.

We bring in all the book together.

We make gingerbread cookies.

We have a giant inflatable gingerbread
that walks around the book club

for the kids.

And, that's kind of annual tradition.

Yeah, we have lots of different events,
and we try to make it so that when you buy

a membership, you can use your use it
however you want, right?

You. It's not one of those things
where I signed up for soccer.

And it's every Monday
and I'm walked into that.

It's like, no, you could come on
a Tuesday, you could come for an event,

you can use it for a mom's event
or a parent's night out, whatever.

It might be nice.

What are those prices looking like?

They're all on our website. Yep.

So you can either come try a class.

Yeah, yeah. For free.

Exclusive using the code books.

Because booked.

We want to be a good friend.

Yes. Come in and try this.

We're going to share that out. Booked.

That's a friends only.

This is episode 177.

We're here with our good friend
Heather from the book club.

Booked. I like it.

We're going to use that code.

No, this is inspiring, I love reading.

Obviously, I'm a lifelong learner.

I'm not afraid to make mistakes,
as you can see.

Made a few today, but I learned.

So. No, this is great.

What are some things that you've learned

from yourself by starting this book club?

I mean, I've had Instagram.

Yeah. Who knew?

I'm learning how to use

cannon.

It's fun.

Do you do the videos
like the talk to the camera video?

Really hate it.

I know, but then I'm like,

you know, it's funny.

Yeah.

Yeah,
I, I do it, too, for Friends of Feeny.

So, yeah, I had a wonderful coach, Sarah

Salmon, use it as marketing.

Oh, wonderful.

Nice. Who was that? Sarah sanchez.

Sarah sham.

I gotta look her up. Sarah sanchez.

We could use some.

Now we do recommendations.

Do you have a recommendation of a book?

Movie? Restaurant?

Anything. Could be podcast.

The next chapter. Oh. Yep.

Love the next chapter.

Love their kids.

Graduating from West,
having an opportunity to have a job.

And they've been so generous to us.

We've gone in

and they donated to build our kids
like they're wonderful humans over there.

Fab fitness is another one of us.

She's come and worked with
some of our book club moms.

Is that down in the center, too?

She's in Farmington,

but she also has an app,
and she's very connected in West Hartford.

A lot of our moms will drop off their kids
at a class and go down to Wild Soul.

Where's that?

Is that in the center?

Yeah. It's where?

Right near Zohar.

Know exactly where that is.

Little Hope is great.

Is wild soul.

The new is hitting donut crazy.

Wild soul is right next to SK Lavery.

Used to be.

Oh, right to the right.

Woman owned business. Wonderful.

I work out there.

A lot of our members
work out there. Drop their kids.

Is it yoga or Pilates?
What is it? Cycling.

All the things.

Oh, nice.

Yeah, yeah.

Not cycling, but everything else.

They're wonderful.

Cool. Wild soul.

Gotta do a plug for West Hartford,

the softball league,
the incoming president, and,

is a coach
for the hockey for the Wolves. And.

Oh, he is credible.

Don't get enough credit for coaching.

Oh, right.

Like,
you give your time and you volunteer.

He's making, well, spreadsheets.

Like he's doing all the things
just because he loves kids and seeing them

develop.
So. Yeah. Gotta give them a big shout out.

And then you have a parent sitting
on the sideline like, why did this happen?

Well, you can volunteer then.

Exactly why. Yeah.

And so we have again,

we have wonderful mills.

You can reach out.

Did she paint the bookstore
or the excuse me, book club?

I apologize.

I painted it, but she does a way better
job, so I'm going to have her comment.

She's wonderful.
Who painted the Harry Potter room?

Nice. Well,

Gabby.

Salvador.

Gabby.

Salvador.

Love it.

All the shout outs, I like it.

I'm the,

Are you ready for trivia?

You're gonna crush. You're gonna crush.

We should have dropped shots of tequila
if you get one of these wrong.

Right?

It's a school night.

Name the little girl who falls down
the rabbit hole.

Alice. Boom.

What kind of dog is Clifford? One.

Who's the main character
in Cat in the hat?

What color is the Qur'an
that breaks in the day?

The crayons quit.

Oh, man.

Green. Oh.

He's.

Esteban.

What does Max wear and where

the wild things are?

What type of animals?

Wilbur. In Charlotte's web.

What is the name of the spider?

Too easy.

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

SpongeBob. Not a bucket, right?

Okay.

It is. Who knows?

What does the Very Hungry Caterpillar
eat through?

What does he eat? Everything. Everything.

Yeah. Yeah. Everything. Yep.

Who's the boy that gets the chocolate
factory at the end of Willy Wonka?

What is a Gruffalo

monster?

Very good.

Who's Harry
Potter's best friend with red hair?

What's the name of the mouse?

And you give a mouse a cookie?

No it doesn't.

It's a trick question.

What does Pete the Cat love,

You're good.

Who wrote green eggs and ham?

Crushed it.

Crushed it?

Yep. 15.

The Qur'an one was tough to this.

It was all my credibility.

You're like. Nope.

Gotta go.

Sorry.

Close it down. Yeah.

That was an amazing talking with you. Any.

You passed the trivia,
you shared your favorite restaurant.

You brought some wonderful collection
of books.

Every book comes with a learning lesson.

You're making it real.

Touch tone.

Touch

on my.

You're gonna make lesson plans
for parenting.

Parenting lesson plans?

I guess not.

We won't call them lesson plans.

Mom, you have homework when you go home.

Oh, I like this supplemental.

Any closing remarks?

No. I just love what you're doing.

We'll have a Friday. Yes.

Or whatever.

Am I ever have any? Yeah.

That was so cool. Thank you so much.

We're at the book club.

This is LaSalle road, second floor.

Let's go up there.

Nice.

Right by Brickell.

Call it a night.

Can't beat it. All right. On three.

We'll say be a good friend.
One. Two. Three.

Be a good friend.

All right, all right.

Beanie talks with friends episode 177.

My name is Eric Feeney, founder
and president of Friends of Feeney.

Our mission is to help
children and families

that need assistance
after heartbreak, their tragedy.

And I use this podcast.

Feeney talks with friends,
and I talk to wonderful

people in the community
that are doing great things.

And we're here with Ashley.
What's up Ashley?

It's Heather.

Why did I.

Did I write that down? Oh,
I wrote that down.

That was a bit.

Hey. We're going.

No, I wrote Ashley.

I friends.

A free

day. Hey!