- But also, what I'm so excited.

Oh my gosh, you all.

I am so excited right now to introduce one of my favorite new people, Nicole Natasha Fenner.

And she is a visionary and a game changer and just an all-around wonderfully intelligent human being.

She has been given a strong calling and uses her purpose to touch lives on a daily basis.

Writing is her avenue to help young girls on their journey.

She is equipping readers with hope, a voice, and inspiration with each page turn.

Upon her completion of child psychology and development courses in the university setting, she realized even more how important the early years of life are to children.

The focus of her Sister Girl Collection is to motivate young girls to be enthusiastic about life, make good decisions, and learn that children, excuse me, and learn that they are valuable.

Nicole currently resides in Halifax, North Carolina, with plans to find other ways to reach the community and world through inspiration and advocacy.

Welcome, Nicole.

- Thank you, Kristi.

Thank you so much for that warm introduction.

I really appreciate it.

And I just wanna say good afternoon, and I am so honored and happy to be here today.

This is like a dream come true.

This is my wildest dream to have the opportunity to speak at the PBS North Carolina Education Summit.

I'm happy to be speaking with caregivers, parents, teachers, administrators, and all these wonderful individuals that's making an impact on the lives of children.

And today, I'm gonna speak about the impact of building an ecosystem that models literacy, and how we can help to further literacy in our communities.

Go to the next slide.

Okay.

And yes, Kristi already introduced me, but I wanted to share some additional facts.

I am the author of the children's books in the Sister Girl Collection, and I'm a graduate of Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia.

And that's a historically black college and university.

And I love my HBCU.

Sister Girl Collection was recognized as an American Express Founder of Change, and we was featured in Forbes Next 1000 2021 list of 1,000 new entrepreneurs redefining what it means to build and run their business today.

And our first children's book, "Sister Girl and the Training Wheels," was featured in PopSugar, and the article was "Diversify Your Kid's Bookshelf With These 20 Children's Books by Black Authors."

And the cool thing about it is, when I decided to start writing and writing the Sister Girl Collection and creating my first business, Sister Girl Publishing, is it was just a labor of love.

It was something I wanted to do to give back to my community.

I worked as a tutor counselor, as a after-school counselor while in college and also after college.

And I realized how just important it was, literacy is taught for our kids, for our community, and for future generations.

To the next slide.

Okay.

And yes, the Sister Girl Collection is an empowerment book series that encourages children to believe in themselves, to believe in their creative abilities, and to know that they are valuable.

I started writing around 2016, and I just had an idea.

I was like, I love interacting with children.

I love being a tutor.

I love just making a difference in the world.

And I was thinking, what can I do?

What additional can I do with affecting literacy in our communities?

Growing up in rural North Carolina, you see things, sometimes it's generational illiteracy.

Sometimes it's issues where children just don't know how to read.

And we all know that literacy is the foundation.

So getting to the impact of building, the goal today is to talk about the impact of building an ecosystem that models literacy in the world of a child.

And the ecosystem consists of a lot of areas, but I'll just talk about a few.

The first one is the family, caregivers, the community, and resources like PBS.

So this picture right here, these pictures, these pictures right here is actually a memory.

This is my first reading memory.

This is a picture of my dad and a picture of me.

You see a red couch.

I'm not in the picture of my dad.

That's actually my brother.

But the importance of this is that I remember one of my first memories of me being in daycare.

And when I was in daycare, I remember one day sitting down on this red couch with my dad.

I was actually born in Mount Vernon, New York, but I grew up in Halifax, North Carolina.

So if you ask me where I'm from, I'm more likely to say Halifax, North Carolina, 'cause I've been in North Carolina since I was six years old.

So this is at our apartment in Mount Vernon, New York.

And I didn't know at the time that my dad was teaching me how to read.

Because, at a young age, I always wanted to know how to read.

And so I remember he would write down the words, like red, blue, yellow, green, orange, and he would put a circle beside each word, and then he would give me crayons.

And he'd give me a handful of crayons, and I would have to take the crayons and color in.

And I didn't know at the time that my dad was teaching me sight words.

Who would've known that at the time, at that young age, how this memory impacted my life?

And my dad teaching me sight words, he also did one more thing.

I'm very serious about penmanship.

I remember he would have the handwriting book, and we would sit there, and I learned how to do cursive really early too because he just was so serious about teaching us how to write and how to read.

And this memory shows how our ecosystem starts really young.

It starts really young for children to be able to see role models and seeing the modeling of reading in their family and in their communities.

And the cool thing about this is, it's the smallest, this small lesson is so impactful in my life, and it's so impactful in the lives of children, just the small little things that you do.

So I would recommend everyone take some time today to journal or to write, take some notes in your phone, if you have your phone, and just write down some monumental moments that you plan on having with your children, or with the children that you take care of, or just the children that you interact with, or the children in your classroom.

How do you plan on modeling, reading, and having impactful moments, like the one I can remember with my dad in daycare?

All right, the next slide.

Next slide, please.

Okay.

Right here is two women that made extreme difference in my life.

The first person I will talk about is Anissa Patton, and we'll talk about the value of teachers in the community.

So this was my fourth grade teacher.

She was my fourth grade teacher.

She came to our school.

It was a small school in Halifax County, North Carolina.

And she was a teaching fellow.

Yes, she was with Teach for America.

She was with Teach for America.

And why I remember her so much because she made learning fun.

She made it where we felt like it was okay to be ourselves.

She exposed us to new stories.

She exposed us to new books.

And I know that she impacted my life in such a amazing way.

I'll give you an example of a couple of ways that she did.

So I remember when we was in fourth grade, and we was learning about South America, and we had to learn all the countries, and we learned about the gross domestic products.

So within each, we drew a big life-size, a big life-size map of South America, and then everybody was assigned, everybody was assigned a different country.

And we brought in things like cotton and pennies and aluminum foil and corn maybe, just different things, and we put it on the different countries.

And to this day, I still remember, I still remember all the countries, the Andes Mountains, Brazil, Argentina.

I still to this day because the way she taught it to us.

Another example I can remember from our class in the fourth grade was when we was learning the states, all 50 states.

And I remember where we all wrote down, say, North Carolina and Raleigh, and we had to learn the capitals and the state.

And we hung up all of the states and the capitals in the ceiling of the room.

And that was like a monumental moment because it really taught us, and we knew and we remembered.

And my last but not least example of how her teaching style impacted my life as well.

When we was learning about the history of North Carolina, and this probably either fourth or fifth grade, we was learning about the history of North Carolina.

And I remember we brought in, some people brought in corn, some people brought in cotton, because we was learning about the gross domestic products of our state as well.

So I want to share this story because this shows how implementing different learning styles, implementing different ways of teaching, helps children to broaden their world and broaden their horizon.

Another lady that really impacted my life.

She wasn't an elementary teacher, but she was over a program called Dr. Turnage Scholars Program.

Her name was Dr. Turnage.

And she impacted me a whole, tremendously.

I would say tremendously.

Because when we was in eighth grade, she had a program.

It was called the Scholars Program.

And we applied for it, and we went to Elizabeth City State University for six weeks in the summertime.

And it was very impactful because we learned about science, technology, math, and all those subjects at the time that they would say that girls are not the best in those subjects or girls don't thrive in those subjects.

But we had the exposure.

And I would say the great thing about Dr. Turnage was that, when I was in that program, I know it changed my life.

Because I'm a first-generation college graduate.

Neither one of my parents went to college, but they was very hard workers, and they really pushed us to learn.

They really pushed us to make sure we had great reading skills, great math skills, and just, if we needed a tutor, they made sure we had it.

But one thing about the Scholars Program that impacted my life so much is because that, after I did that program, it wasn't if I was going to college, it wasn't when I was going to college, the question was where I was going.

'Cause I knew at that time, after doing that program, I was gonna go to college.

And I knew that that really made a difference.

That let me know, like, I can do it.

And right today, if no one has told you as an educator, if no one has told you as a teacher, administrator, counselor, you are appreciated, and you're a change maker, know today that you are appreciated, and you are making a tremendous difference in the lives of children.

Next slide, please.

Okay.

Also, while I'm talking about my teachers and educators, I would also like to share about the importance of literature, the importance of diverse literature, the importance of teachers and educators sharing different books with children.

And I would say that I wanna still celebrate my fourth grade teacher, Ms. Anissa Patton, because she really exposed us to different books.

She really exposed us to different stories.

And the first story I wanna talk about is "Mufaro's Beautiful Daughter."

And that story was so impactful for one is because I actually, I actually was able to see myself in the books that I read.

I was able to.

And I didn't know at the time that me seeing that book impacted me later on in life becoming an author.

And that book, this has to be, it's almost.

I just turned the big 40 this year.

So [laughs] this book, even to this day, even to this day, this book is such a big deal to me.

I was actually in the, I went to LA earlier this year, and I went to this place called the oldest library, no, the oldest bookstore, and I saw that book, and I just had to have it because it was such a wonderful memory.

It helped me.

Reading that book in fourth grade made me realize how beautiful I was as a child.

It made me realize that our stories were valuable.

The next book, "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry."

Oh, wow.

I would say that was a heavy story for a child to read.

But I would say this, "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry," it actually helped me break down some subjects that at the time, you know, growing up in the early '90s, it was different lessons that we was learning.

It was different things that we were seeing.

It's different things in history that as children, you really don't always understand.

You don't understand different subjects.

But I can say that what I learned from "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" is just that to be resilient, to push forward, to just love who you are as a person.

And the last book, this "Hatchet," I would say, I know we read this in Ms. Patton's class, I know.

I don't know how long it took us to read "Hatchet."

But I would say this about "Hatchet."

That was one of my favorite books as a child.

The thing about "Hatchet," it made me go into the world, see the world in the eyes of another child.

And that's the cool thing with having multicultural books.

That's the cool thing with having diverse books.

It's about going and seeing the eyes of the different perspectives, seeing the world how somebody else may see the world.

And I really love the story because I actually sat here, I remember being in class, and thinking about how would this boy, how would it feel actually being in a plane, and the plane going down, and you don't have your family with you, and having to live and having to figure things out and having to survive?

But reading that book really helped me to see the world in the eyes of another child.

And a quote I want to share with you guys today that I thought that would be appropriate was, "Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, "to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs "is good for him."

And that's from, you know, mother Maya Angelou that I love.

I love Maya Angelou.

And I think that that quote is so relevant today with everything going on with banning books and just different things.

Just know that sometimes it's just the story.

We just need to see the story, need to hear the story.

We need to know that different ideas are relevant.

We need to know that we're all different, but we're all the same at the same time, and we all share similar stories.

So next slide, please.

All right, this picture right here, oh, Lord, this picture right here.

This is a picture.

This is one of my favorite childhood pictures.

And I shared this picture because I have this very big memory.

It's a memory of my mom.

And she always would sit at the dinner table with me, and we would read books, and she would go over our homework with us and make sure that we just understood, our comprehension skills were good, and we just understood our assignments.

And I share this picture as well because, for two reasons.

The first one is, I wanna look at this fact.

"The single most significant factor "influencing a child's early educational success "is an introduction to books and being read to at home "prior to beginning school."

And that's from the National Commission on Reading, 1985.

And a quote for me is, "It is essential for our future as a nation "and as a community that our children are empowered "to read by their families."

Their families, their caregivers, and anybody that comes in interaction with children, their tutor, tutor counselors, mentors.

It's just very imperative that we encourage children to read.

And I'll probably say this more than once, but even if children like to listen to audio books, 'cause when I look at this picture right now, I have this funny memory.

I'll just share it with you 'cause it came to my mind, and it may positively affect someone.

When I look at this picture, I think of my sister.

And I remember as a child, we used to go to the library.

I'll keep it on this slide for a second.

We would go to the library.

And when we would go to the library, she would, in our little library, we had a little bag, and it had books in a bag with a little, at the time, cassette tapes.

And I would always just be so puzzled.

I was like, "Why does she have to get the books "with the cassette tapes?"

Like, "I know she know how to read."

But she told me later on in life that she enjoyed hearing the books and reading at the same time.

And it's so funny 'cause I used to kind of like give my sister that funny look.

You know how we act as kids.

Yes, audio books.

And now, audio books is such a big deal.

So that child was ahead of her time.

[laughs] She was ahead of her time.

And it's so funny because I would just be like, I was like, "Angela, why, why?

"Why do you have to get the cassette tapes?"

But she loved it as well.

And I also wanted to share the importance of literature in the home is because, at the end of the day, make sure if your child is interested in sci-fi, they may be interested in drama, they may be interested in sports.

Like, back in the day, we used to have sports, the "Children's Sports Illustrated," or we have "Bill Nye The Science Guy," and just different things to look at.

And I saw something earlier today, it said, whatever you're doing, if you're looking at a book, thinking about a book, listening to a book, whatever you're reading, you are reading.

And that's the goal, to have children reading.

And something else I wanna share while looking at this slide.

I remember, it was a summer, maybe the summer of sixth or seventh grade.

I'm sharing this because the importance of affirming children, affirming not just with reading, but affirming them when it comes to talent, when it comes to their creative abilities, when it comes to just things they're interested in doing.

I remember, I was probably like sixth grade, seventh grade, and it was summer camp.

And I remember going to camp, and, you know, you're so excited.

You know everybody went to summer camp at one point.

And you're so excited about going to summer camp.

And I remember we was having a talent show at the summer camp.

And I remember calling my mom on the phone, and I was like, "Ma, they're having a talent show.

"And I don't know if I have a talent."

I said, "Well..." And in my head, I'm thinking, all I can think of at the time of talent was dancing.

I'm not a dancer.

I probably can do a nice two-step for you.

I'm not a singer.

I can't carry a tune.

And I was just like, "Ma."

I remember being on the phone like, "Mommy, what can I do?"

And my mom said, "Nicole, you do have a talent."

I said, "Ma, what's my talent?"

And I remember her, like, vividly.

I remember her telling me, like, "Nicole, your talent is writing.

"Your talent is writing."

And I remember she told me that because I think previously in that school year, we had a writing contest or like a speaking contest or something, and I wrote a speech.

And she said, "How about you do that speech that you wrote "at the talent competition?"

And I think maybe that year I won.

And I was so surprised.

Because I was like, who would've known?

And now, I think back, it's like that powerful memory reflects, it's like sunlight now just hit me in the face, because it's such a powerful memory to think about when I was a kid, like maybe 11 or 12, and I didn't think I had a talent.

Now, I'm like, this is my dream today to be here, to be talking on PBS, to writing children's books.

Even when I went to college, I didn't know I was gonna be a writer.

So I just said that to let you know that even in the smallest ways, make sure to affirm children daily and affirm them.

Because you never know that one sentence, that one word that you can tell them, and 25, 30 years later, they're doing something like this.

So, yes.

Next slide, please.

Okay, now, right here, these pictures.

I'm gonna talk about the impact of community and resources.

So yes, I'm a '80s baby that grew up in the '90s.

And growing up in the '90s, we had the newspaper guy that used to come by the house, and we had a yellow newspaper box in front of the house.

And one thing I could say that my parents did was read the newspaper.

Phew!

My mom would come home, and she would read the newspaper.

My dad would come home and read the newspaper.

And I have these pictures up here because when we was in school back in the early '90s, and we used to have in our art class, right?

We would draw pictures.

So this is a picture I drew.

This had to have been '92 or '93.

I still have these pictures, and I'll tell you why.

I was a serious scrapbooker.

I used to love to scrapbook in the '90s.

And I had this scrapbook from when I graduated from high school.

You know, you have like the flashback of your last 12 years of school.

And one thing I can say, I didn't keep anything from high school.

I kept my diploma and my scrapbook.

Either I kept it or my mom kept it for me more than likely.

More than likely, she kept it for me.

I just came home and found it in a box.

But I would say growing up in Eastern North Carolina, the impact of the newspaper and the impact of resources, and this was a major resource.

I would run to get the newspaper to look at the comics.

I would look at the kid art, if I was featured.

We would look and see who made the honor roll.

And it's just your exposure.

You're looking at what's going on in your community.

You're looking at what's going on in the nation.

I remember reading the newspaper, and I would sit down and talk politics with my dad.

I remember we would talk about what's going on and how did I feel.

And now, I sit back and it kinda, you know, makes me chuckle.

Because like a parent talking to you about your thoughts, your views on the world, how you see the world, and how that can impact you and positively impact you.

Yes, we used to talk about politics.

I remember the elections when I was a kid, and we were so serious about it.

We were so serious.

But this was a great resource to have by growing up in Eastern North Carolina.

And just knowing that.

Now, when I was asked to do this speech, I had to really reflect.

I had to really reflect on what impacted me.

And I realized, like, it was so many different avenues.

It was my family.

It was my school.

It was my teachers.

It was resources, like the newspaper.

It was books.

And sometimes, you may lean in one area.

And that's the cool thing in life.

You may lean more to books, or you may lean more to the newspaper, or you may lean more to shows.

It's just learning just in every avenue of your life.

And that's the thing about having the ecosystem is that in every avenue of a child's life, we can make it that they're learning.

They're seeing literature.

They're seeing words.

They're learning.

They're building their vocabulary, and they're building their comprehension skills.

Okay.

And right here, the impact of PBS.

So I have stories for days when it comes to the impact of PBS.

Oh, wow.

Oh, wow.

Let's start with "Reading Rainbow."

Let's just take a moment, right?

Let's take a moment and think of the theme song.

[coughs] Excuse me.

Let's take a moment, and let's think about the theme song of "Reading Rainbow."

Let's look at these two sentences.

"I can go anywhere.

I can be anything.

"Take a look.

It's in a book."

Yes, think about that.

"I can go anywhere.

I can be anything.

"Take a look.

It's in a book."

Those are powerful words to imprint on a child's mind at such a early age.

Like, I remember growing up in Eastern North Carolina, growing up in Halifax, and when we drove down the road, all you see is like, you know, the farms and the woods and things like that, or you're just going to school, and it's just your same community.

But imagine a show that's actually telling a child to pick a book up and imagine the world somewhere else or explore your imagination.

And I remember so vividly as a kid, waking up, waking up in the morning, jumping up, and going to the TV.

And this was back in the '90s when we didn't have remote control, and we didn't have cable at the time either.

And I remember, like, running up to the TV and turning the little knob, and making sure you get right there on the channel, so we can watch "Reading Rainbow" and see what LeVar Burton had to stay and see all the different adventures we was gonna go on that day.

And then, "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?"

Oh, Lord, that was amazing.

That was amazing.

I loved that show so much.

I remember coming home from school and sitting down and wanting to know where we was about to go.

Like, I was about to go somewhere with the gumshoe.

I was a gumshoe, and I was going wherever Carmen Sandiego was going that day.

And at that time, you didn't realize how much you was learning, how much geography you was learning, how much history you was learning, and how just interactive and just, and you can apply what you learned in Carmen Sandiego in school.

Like, imagine, let's think about, you learned about a different country 'cause Carmen Sandiego went there.

So when you're in class, and you're learning about world geography, you're like, "Oh, I know that."

And that is taking you ahead of your time because of this show.

Like, that is amazing.

And then the other show that I loved on PBS was "Ghostwriter."

And "Ghostwriter," I didn't know at the time, it was a show, if you don't remember it, but it was a show where the kids was in the city in New York, and they was solving mysteries.

And Ghostwriter used to come up on like the wall, and it'd have clues, like a typewriter, and it'd have clues, and it would say, like, this is where they need to look.

But at the time, it wasn't just about the children trying to solve the mystery, but "Ghostwriter" was building your vocabulary.

"Ghostwriter" was helping you learn more words.

"Ghostwriter" was helping you learn context clues.

And we all know the importance of context clues when children are learning how to read.

So that is just so important about how these shows impacted my life, impacted my life and the lives of children.

Let's take a moment and think about, we can never probably know the number of children that PBS to this day is still positively impacting, and that these shows positively impacted so many children's lives, enabled them to learn so much, enabled you to be probably ahead when you was in class, and enabled you to just have a better reading ability.

So thank you, PBS.

Next slide, please.

Okay.

Next, we will look at the impact of the local library.

So right here, the impact of the local library in the ecosystem of a child.

Ooh, this library right here in Halifax, North Carolina, was a serious safe haven for us children.

This library has like maybe so many memories.

Like, even now, I'm thinking about last week, I was sitting down with my cousin and my sister, and we was talking about how we love the library.

And even though I grew up in rural North Carolina, I would say a blessing was that we had access to the library in walking distance.

I had the option of walking to the library.

And I would say one of the many programs, one of the main programs that I will never forget, and I still appreciate to this day is the summer reading program at the local library.

I know that in conjunction with "Reading Rainbow" and the summer reading program in the library, that probably was my whole summer some summers as a child.

I would watch LeVar Burton, and he would have the kids at the end of the show, and they would have the list of books that they're introducing.

And then, you know, LeVar always said the end of the show, "You don't have to take my word for it."

And then I would take his word for it.

Every word that LeVar Burton said, I took to heart.

I would jump up, and I would go to the library and get every single book that they recommended.

And if they did not have that book that they recommended on "Reading Rainbow," I would put my name on a list, so when the book became available, I can go and pick the book up.

I used to pick up so many books.

I think I used to meet the limit of how many books that I could take home that day.

And my little self would have a, they used to give us a little blue bag.

I would just be walking down the road with my little bag or on my bicycle, wobbling, because I had to get all the books.

I know for sure one summer, I read maybe a hundred books at the library for the summer reading program.

And I wanted to share this because I know now we're in the digital age, and sometimes we do not go to the local library.

But the local library is still there.

The local library, I went to the library maybe a couple weeks ago, and it's bigger and better than ever now.

'Cause when we was kids, if they didn't have the book, they didn't have the book.

But now, at the local library, just in case you don't know, you're not aware, say they're sharing books between the different libraries, and they're shipping books from one library to the next, and they're actually, if you want a book, and sometimes it's not, maybe you don't wanna spend the money, and you can just go.

It's free.

It's free.

So let's make sure that we, you know, take children to the library when we have a chance.

And one story that keep coming to mind, I guess I should share it.

I'm thinking about moving from just regular, just going, getting the books to, we moved to the digital age.

And it's funny being a millennial because we kinda lived through all these phases.

So I remember our library at the time had one computer.

This had to be in like '99.

We had one computer, and we used to go and get the little encyclopedia on the computer before.

And remember this, who remembers the encyclopedias?

I'm talking about like the book encyclopedias and the almanac.

And when you had to go do your project for school, you had to go copy the pages.

You had to copy the pages, yes.

You had to copy the pages, and you had to get your encyclopedia and do your research and do your papers.

Then we transitioned, oh, wow.

Just thinking about this is amazing.

Then we transitioned from going to the library and copying everything, blowing up the copy machine 'cause we printed everything, to going to our one computer and printing off all the information.

So now, even though we're in, to circle back, even though we're in the digital age, our libraries are still there as a resource for the children in the community.

And if they haven't decided yet, or if you miss the summer reading program, make sure to go to your summer reading program.

Last slide, please.

Thank you.

Okay, well, with the family, today, we discussed the family.

We discussed teachers and how they positively impact our community, our schools, and future generations.

We talked about how the library and PBS and all these resources come together to build our children's reading ecosystem.

And I want you to ask yourself, how can I continue to build out the children in my world literacy ecosystem?

And how can I expand and improve?

And the goal is to say, even if you're doing something, how can I improve, as a teacher, as a mentor, as a counselor, as a psychologist, as a PBS worker, as a author?

What can we do tomorrow?

What can we do next week?

What can we do in our communities, in our schools, and in our families to make sure that we're modeling literacy in all areas of children's lives?

And I just want to share these pictures of Sister Girl, because Sister Girl is so near and dear to my heart, because this is my labor of love, and let you guys know that this is my way.

This is my way that I am contributing to the ecosystem of literacy in our state, in our country.

And maybe I can take Sister Girl global, so that's the goal.

Next slide, please.

All right, well, thank you.

I wanna say, from the bottom of my heart, thank you to PBS, thank you to Kristi and the whole team.

Thank you to everyone, teachers, caregivers, families, friends, educators, administrators, everybody that came to today and listened to my speech.

And I just want you to know that the Sister Girl Collection is my labor of love and is my way to give back to the community.

If you want to check out my books, the first book is "Sister Girl and the Training Wheels."

It empowers children to believe in themselves and to know that they're valuable.

And I also want to show positive family dynamics in my books.

And the second book is "Sister Girl and the New Dress," where she learns how to sew with her mother.

Because, in this book, I want children to learn about creativity.

I want them to know that they can take an idea out of their imagination and bring it into real life, into reality.

And the third book is "Sister Girl and the Family Dinner."

And in this book, growing up, we used to grow vegetables.

I used to grow vegetables with my dad.

Right now, I still love growing vegetables.

I love growing tomatoes and corn and cucumbers and squash.

Yes, I grew up in the country, so I love growing vegetables.

And in this book, "Sister Girl and the Family Dinner," she learns how to grow a garden.

She learns how to grow flowers.

She learn how to grow herbs.

And then they have a dinner.

She grows the vegetables and flowers with her parents, and then they have a dinner, and they invite their family and have a family dinner.

And if you wanna check out the books, make sure you go to www.sistergirlcollection.com.

If you wanna email me, it's nicole@sistergirlcollection.com.

I'm on all social medias, but you can check me out on Instagram with Sister Girl Collection and TikTok with Sister Girl Collection.

And I just wanna tell you that whether you are a parent, teacher, counselor, administrator, caregiver, we sincerely appreciate your contributions you're making to the world and just know that it's invaluable.

And also, I have this awesome sales goal.

My sales goal is I want to put "Sister Girl and the Training Wheels," all the Sister Girl Collection, in the hands of about 50,000 children by the end of next year.

So if you like, make sure to help me reach this sales goal.

And PBS, I appreciate you so much.

Thank you.

- Thank you so much, Nicole.

This was a fantastic presentation, and we just really appreciate and value your experience, your expertise, and sharing this amazing collection with us.

You all heard it first, Nicole Fenner.

There is a lot more to come from Nicole.

I just know it.

So thank you, Nicole.

We have been monitoring the chat, and we probably have time for two questions.

Nicole, I hate to cut your time short, so we'll be trying to get these to you.

But one question is, what is the age range for these books?

And as far as reading them in the classroom, would you recommend these as a great read aloud?

And then, what age range would you recommend?

- Okay, awesome questions.

Thank you for the question.

The age group is four to eight years old.

And yes, these are great books to read in the classroom.

I've read the books at KIPP, at the local public schools.

We're also vendors with Weldon City Schools, Robeson County Schools.

Durham County also was a vendor of Sister Girl as well.

So the books are implemented in classrooms as well and in programs as well, so great question.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

And be sure to check out the chat, Nicole, too, 'cause there's a lot of love going on for you right now and a lot of people hoping to help you with your goal of reaching 50,000 readers here.

So we're definitely trying to help out with that today as well.

But just some quality, really quality books for our littles here.

So thank you, Nicole.

I don't see any more questions, just a whole lot of love right now.

So please take that 'cause this is genuine and authentic right here.

So thank you, Nicole.

We really appreciate you.

- Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it.

I'm just so happy I had this opportunity.

I'm just so honored that I was able to spend today with you guys.

- Well, the pleasure is all ours, Nicole.

Thank you so much.

All right, folks, thank you so much.

Gosh, I just have goosebumps.

I'm just really loving today and loving everything you have.

We do have time for another trivia question.

This is for a giveaway.

This is tricky folks.

Now, we're.