Finding Harmony and Friendship with Allia Zobel Nolan
- Valerie
- 8 hours ago
- 19 min read
Allia Zobel Nolan discusses her latest picture book, 'Finding Harmony,' which explores themes of peace, friendship, and teamwork through the story of a kitten.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity but reflects the full conversation from the BookWorthy Podcast. Grab a cup of coffee, listen, and read along. This post does contain affiliate links. Thanks for your support.
Valerie - Welcome to Bookworthy, where we talk about the heart behind the books your kids are reading. Today, we're talking with children's author Allia Zobel Nolan about her latest picture book, Finding Harmony, the kitten who taught friends kindness. Allia was last on Bookworthy talking about Harriet, Hurry up, and the slow day back in season three. But today we've turned our attention to the search for a kitten and the highs and lows of friendship. Welcome back to Bookworthy, Allia
Allia - Well, I'm very excited to be here, and I love talking with you about children's books, which is my favorite thing to talk about besides my cats.
Valerie - Well, we are kind of combining both of those loves today with this book, Finding Harmony. But before we can talk about that, we have to do our random question of the week. And today's is, what is your go-to coffee order?
Random Question of the Week
Allia - Whoa, what is my go-to coffee love? I am a coffee lover. I like tea, but it doesn't get me going. I have three cups of coffee every morning, but they're medium roast. They're not like high roast. And I do absolutely love a latte, but I don't have a latte machine. So I just have regular coffee and do my meditation for an hour in the morning. I meditate, and I pray, and I drink coffee, and I pet the cats, and that's how my day starts. So yes, I love coffee.
Valerie - That sounds like a great way to start the day. Or is it I've found a way to, what is it, do a little concoction in my house where I'm using my coffee machine, but making iced coffee with caramel. I'm like, it's very, it seems like a scientific process, but it's fun when I get to make it work.
Allia - Well, you know, I tried something different, and it turned out to be quite delicious. I buy this Hint water because I drink a lot of water, and it's supposed to have a hint of flavor. And I, instead of taking tap water, I've been putting the hint water, and then I get the flavor of not only I use flavored coffee like vanilla or hazelnut, but I, now it's got a hint of whatever the hint is, like peach or raspberry. So that was an experiment that worked out pretty well.
Valerie - Sounds very interesting. Well, Leah, why don't you tell us a little bit about your book, Finding Harmony in the Search for Friendship?
The Inspiration behind Allia Zobel Nolan's Finding Harmony
Allia - Okay, just one second, please go away. Can't concentrate with her. Well, my book, Finding Harmony, had a circuitous route to its beginning. An editor at Zondervan asked me to come up with a book about peace. And you know, that's a humongous concept. How do you tell?
Teach children about peace. So I thought, well, you have to break it down. You have to boil it down to like one or two different kinds of, you know, focuses. And so I said to myself, well, what is peace? And, you know, it's really getting along. It's getting along with your neighbor, and it's trying to be nice and live in harmony. Okay, there's the word harmony.
So then I thought to myself, well, you know, can't really name a character peace know, here peace, here peace, that just doesn't sound very weird. So I went online, and I looked for synonyms. And of course, I came up with Harmony, and I said, I could see a kitten with the name Harmony, that's very sweet, let me use that. So then I had to go back and think about how I can integrate, of course, a cat, you know, a cat has to be in this.
And I thought, well, maybe the characters are trying to find the lost cat. So that's how that came about. It isn't really a book, you know, it doesn't say this is how peace works, but through the example of the kitten and the children working together, it's sort of like you don'tI'm trying not to show them me, me, me, because in this world today, everything is me, know, take a picture of me and selfie and all this other stuff. So it's, I'm trying to say to them and let them understand that it's we, we, instead of me, me, and that things really seem to work out much better when we involve other people. We also involve their feelings.
We have to put ourselves in their place. And that is a way to achieve harmony. And in the book, when they did all these things, they were able to achieve, find the cat, and also achieve harmony within themselves. Because at the beginning they tried to, they...
They were shouting at each other. They stopped for ice cream, so they were distracted. Meanwhile, the cat is going meow meow, but no one heard her because of all these things. They weren't concentrated. They were mean to each other. And the second thing that I wanted to involve the children with is prayer. The main character, Casey, asks the she jumps up in the middle of You know trying to find the cat and says we didn't say a prayer So the other character says boy, you know God has better things to do than to worry about a cat You know, he's not you know, he's not gonna be interested in that He's not going to so another character corrects her and says my mom told me that you can pray to God for anything now if you pray to God to win the lottery, maybe he won't help you out there, but
You have to pray with the intention that it's something God would want you to have or do. So they went back, and they held hands, and they said a prayer. And it was just trying to combine these two things. Not really two things, but it's learn to work together, involve everyone, ask God's help, pay attention, and try not to be a bully to run the whole show. So that's my peace book.
Valerie - Your peace book has a lot of pieces to it, but those pieces do help communicate such a broad concept of peace and not just peace itself, and working together with others, but how we treat each other and how we're aware of our surroundings. And Harmony the kitten has a really fun part playing kind of peekaboo throughout the story to help encourage readers to keep reading. What made you want Harmony to kind of pop up on every page?
Allia -Well, the thing is, to get kids' attention, I put it in an interactive book, in that it doesn't have flaps to open or whatever, but it involves the child because at the very bottom, there's a question. Do you see Harmony on this page? Harmony, is Harmony behind the rock? So you're not only reading, you're involving the child with the characters. The characters are looking for Harmony, and the reader is looking for harmony. So I wanted to add just that extra little bit, you know, to better involve the children. Because if they have a task, if you tell them, can they find it on this page? Or they'll be, you know, they'll be more attuned to it and attentive, I feel anyway.
Valerie - It's very true. If we could, you know, a really good children's book engages kids on so many different levels and that's why they keep coming back to them and so they can keep returning to a message that can be complicated and have so many layers, but keep coming back and continue to learn and dive a little deeper into the idea of both friendship and peace and just caring for the world that we're in. So that's a lot of fun.
Allia - Right. I did have a part in the book where the boys, because I think boys at this age think they know it all, and they think they know better than the girls. So I have a spread in there where they are going to the woods to get some big sticks in case they have to fight some dragons, which is all in their minds and whatever. But then also when they see what their words and how their actions hurt the main character, they apologize. And I wanted to have that, it's not a bad thing, or it doesn't lessen you to apologize to someone when you know that you've hurt them. So I wanted that peace to go in. And the best part about this book was working with the illustrator. I had the most fabulous illustrator, and he is in Argentina. So we emailed back and forth, and I wrote out an art brief, which is what's on every single page, and he got it. Sometimes the illustrators don't get it, or they have a difficult time meshing with what you want.
And he was so fabulous. Very few changes, very few changes. And the characters, I don't know if you've noticed, they're very up to date. One of them has the shaved hair that the kids have these days, and the spiked hair and everything. So when I looked at the characters, I said, boy, these are very contemporary. Kids will, it's not like Raggedy Ann or Raggedy Andy. It's like they can see themselves. In the characters. I had a very, very pleasant working relationship with this illustrator. So that was fun.
Valerie - And it shows in the book that, you know, because with a picture book, illustrations are kind of half of the story. And I love how both the illustrations and the way that you develop the individual characters, the boys and the girls, and Casey and all their interactions, are very relatable to how kids interact today. So it's, you know, it doesn't feel like a story that is like, this is a story my mom grew up with. I don't want to read this, even though it's probably telling you similar things, but it is very relatable and very understandable. And, for you know, the kids that are facing the same struggles that we are today.
Allia - Right, right. Well, you know, that's what I tried to do. People say, Well, how can you write for kids? You know, they ask me, how can you? I pretend like I am the kid, and what, you know, what a kid would think or whatever. And that's the way, you know, for the time that I'm doing the book, I put myself in their place or try to put myself, what would they think? Not what I, as an adult, would think. And then I have to get out of that and cook dinner for my husband.
Valerie - or what you want to... I know it's hard to shift your brain in that way to be mindful of that child inside of you, but then remember, yes, dinner still needs to get on the table every once in a while. Too fun. Well, what do you hope kids walk away with? What do you want the overall message for kids to understand at the end of this book?
The Goal of Allia Zobel Nolan's Finding Harmony
Allia - Well, the two things that I mentioned before of the one thing is that teamwork is very important. I mean, you must have something that you do well yourself. But I find that, you know, brainstorming and getting other people's ideas. And I have a good friend who, when I'm stuck, I always go to her when we go to Panera, and we just sit there and throw out ideas. And, you know, a lot of times you are you think you know it all and you think you have it all, but the other person adds to it, always, always adds to it. So that's one of the things I wanted the children to take away: that things go smoother when you involve other people, your peers or whatever, if you have a project, a very big project. It's really hard to go it alone because not only do you have a problem trying to challenge, trying to figure things out, but it's so much more helpful to have other people's take on something that you might not. And the second thing again is that we can ask God for, we can pray for anything. We can ask God to help us in any circumstance. And God is interested in everything we're interested in.
We can ask God for, we can pray for anything. We can ask God to help us in any circumstance. And God is interested in everything we're interested in.
The scripture says not a bird falls from sparrow falls from the ground without God knowing it. And you may feel, with all the things that are going on in this world, you may feel, well, I have to ask God to help me if I'm going to the dentist, and I'm afraid, or I have to ask God, I'm gonna get a COVID vaccine pretty soon. I want God to help me there. You can, kids have to understand that there is nothing that God can't help you with. And that was why I included them saying the prayer. And you may forget about it. Kids may know, adults and children, that you go to God as the last resort instead of going to God as the first resort. So this is kind of like, you know, she jumps up, and she says, My goodness, we forgot. You know, we forgot to ask God. So I think it's a good idea, before we started this, we said a prayer. It's not, you know, God doesn't just pick and choose what he wants to concentrate on. He concentrates on everything that we're interested in.
Valerie - That's one of those really hard concepts to understand about God that, you know, he is with us in everything. And if we care about it, he cares about it because we care about it. So it's a little bit of a tongue twister.
Allia - Right. No, it is. Right. Well, it's difficult for little children to, you know, that's why I had the girl speak up and say, you know, God is not interested in our cat. You know, he's got better things to do, you know, and as a kid and even as an adult, you would think that, you know. But like I said before, you shouldn't be going to God for you know, at the last minute, you should be going to him at the beginning.
Valerie -We tend to use prayer as a last resort rather than our first line of defense. It's even with, with my kids, when they lose things, we'll spend hours looking for something that's like, you know, we forgot to pray about this and you know, lo and behold, we'll pray, we'll sit, take a breath and really quickly we'll find whatever we're looking for or it'll show up in the most unique place.
Teaching the Kids the Power of Prayer
Allia - in the most unique places because that's the thing. I think kids and I think adults are part of the problem. Kids want things right away, just like Harriet Heria. Let me find the cat right away. And I think you have to let them practice this. It doesn't come naturally because normally we want things right away. But if you practice, you know, immediate gratification that the kids will grow up knowing. Like you just said, something really important. It'll, it'll, we'll find it. It may not be today or tomorrow or whatever, but in God's time, you'll find it. So.
Valerie - Very true. What was it? My son has a lizard, and this is kind of one of the best examples of it in our household is when the lizard was first in our home, he was like maybe the size of my finger. I'm this little bitty thing. And I went away for the evening, and Dad was in charge of making sure the lizard got fed. And then I came home, and the cage door was open, and we couldn't find the lizard anywhere. I mean, we tore my son's room apart. Looked everywhere. And then it just kind of gained to a point where we're like, I don't know. We just need to wait and see what happens. And lo and behold, the lizard was in the cage the whole time in this little vent area. And he popped out at night because it's a nocturnal creature. It really was like we sit there and we went through all this craziness, and then we're like, okay, we're just going to pray and trust that God sees this little lizard that God knows where he is and he's going to help us find it. And a couple of hours later, after we had just kind of let God do his thing, this lizard just popped right where it was supposed to be.
Allia - Yeah, right. Right. And I think part of it is you get so unnerved and excited and crazy, you know, and I'm ADD, so I get like bananas when something happens, you know, instead of, but I am learning, thank God, to, things happen better when you're calm, you know, you're able to do a lot of things and the result is better when you're calm, not when you're crazy.
Valerie - Yes, it is easy to get worked up and you know something that either is lost or you know something that's happening and to be just this and bring up this anxiety and I think that that's often our first response is nervousness and anxiety instead of like I said the prayer of just Lord we know you got this we don't know how this is gonna end but we're gonna trust that you're in control here.
Allia - Speaking of which, hello. She wants to come in something fierce. And I have a new chair that's not really conducive to her sitting on top of it. So she likes to hang a lot of times, hanging like on the back of it. My goodness.
Valerie - Too fun. Well, Allia, what is your, I guess, most impactful book in your life other than the Bible?
Allia Zobel Nolan's Most Impactful Book
Allia - Okay, well, I made a list. I have it here somewhere. The most impactful book is a book of devotions, and it's called The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie. This book is one of the books I read, like about one chapter and about 10 books in the morning. And one, you know, they're devotionals and different kinds of books. And this book is just so wonderful. It is engaging it. It makes you feel good about yourself, and it makes you feel good about creation. She uses the term your higher power because it's for all religions. It's not just for the Christian religion. And it's it means you have to let go of so many things, just like we were talking
before, you get what God has in store for you like there's this this artwork that I have and there's a little kid and she's got a stuffed animal and Jesus is sitting standing next to her and she's saying but I love it. Meanwhile, he has this ginormous stuffed animal that he wants to give to her, something better. So this book, as I said, is a series of devotions, and it gives you, it pumps up your self-esteem and also your relationship with other people. So I like to read that. There's another one that's called, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff. And it's all small stuff, that's the name of that. And I like to read that. But I also love Anne Lamont. Anything by Anne Lamont is on my list; I have two or three that I haven't finished. She wrote a book called,
Bird by bird, and it's for writers, really, but it's for everyone. It's it's I had never read it before, and someone suggested it to me. I read it, and then I read it again, and then I read it again, and I was like, I can't believe how fantastically she writes. I mean, just unbelievable. So I like that. I like historical fiction books. Sharon Kay Penman, I like those kinds of books, but I like devotionals because they sort of help me get centered. You know, I like to read them in the morning, and they sort of help me get centered for the day.
Valerie - Very excited. Now, Leah, you have written a lot of books over time. Now, what has been your favorite part of your writing career? Like, what has made it most meaningful to you?
Allia - Well, you know, when people send me photographs of their kids reading the book, that makes my day. I mean, I'm not a millionaire. I'm not, you know, James Patterson or whatever. But when somebody sends me a picture of their kid reading the book, that's worth a million bucks to me. I mean, it's just, it might sound corny, but I just love the idea that, because reading to me is so important. It's so important. Mean, I don't think I could be who I am today if I didn't, you know, start. I mean, I used to always have my head in the book. And even now I've got like, you know, 50 on my candle and 150 on my dresser. So it's just such a great way to go into, you know, another person's head, another world, another, it's wonderful. And, you know, when you read these statistics about kids, you know, not reading, that makes me crazy. So that's the most important thing for me. And I love to make people laugh. So I love to write humor. And I have to add right now, I have to insert, I have just won an award from the William Faulkner Literary Competition. I wrote about my, it's short story about my sisters ' kids, who didn't mean to, so the animal activists won't come after me, didn't mean to, but left the ferret outside, and it fried. So the play was all about the fried ferret and how they tried to get their new Spanish housekeeper to serve it for dinner. So it's all, mean, she didn't, and they didn't, and you'd have to read the story, but I was so surprised to get that. You know, that was very, that was nice, I have to say.
Valerie - It sounds like a very fun story and worthy of reading for certain.
Allia - It was just when I was reading it, when I was writing it, I said, you know, people who I love, I mean, I love animals. Mean, I wouldn't necessarily fry ferrets. But, know, if it's fried already, you know, what can you do about it? So anyway, I had to write the story about the cycle. They named the ferret cycle of the fried ferrets. So I was very happy to see that people down in Mississippi seem to relate to this. Not that I'm saying it's not. I know that things, my husband said to me, no wonder you won, you know, it's Mississippi, they like fried stuff. So, you know, anyway, it doesn't take me seriously. So, I'm very happy about that. But I love the idea of getting kids reading.
Valerie - Well, in the South, we do like everything fried, so...
Allia - You know, it's just, you know, I had a child reading my Angels in the Bible upside down. So her mother sent me a video of there is this beautiful child like an angel herself and she's sitting and she's reading and she's going and it book is upside down and she's saying and the angel did this and that and the angel said to me, hi Mary, you know, she's she's making it up as she's going along and see. This is another thing, I'm doing a session on why picture books are so important, not only for language and for getting kids introduced to other people who are not like them, but it also stirs their imagination. I mean, here's this kid telling the whole story about the angels in an upside-down book. I mean, it doesn't get better than that for me anyway. So.
Valerie - That's amazing. Well, Allia, what can we expect next from you?
Future Project and How to Connect with Allia Zobel Nolan
Allia - Well, I'm taking a little rest because I, no, I never rest. I wrote a book before this called, I don't know if you can see it, but it's called, Why Can't My Brother Be More Like My Cat? And this is a fun, very fun, kind of in between a picture book and a reader. And this book, I guess, after I wrote it, I said, you know, this corresponds with, there's a scripture that says, A friend loves at all times, but a brother is born for adversity. And I said, That's what this book is about. So, I mean, it's not religious per se, but it just teaches kids that, you know, friends can be fickle, but your family is usually always there for you, you know, so. And I'm writing a book called Hello God, Remember Me. And it's a devotional to, it's a prayer book for people who want God back in their lives. So that's going from children to adults, but you know, I write what comes to me, you know, so, and I think we need that. That's a book. People are afraid to go back to God because they think he's gonna, you know, he's gonna get me for all the things I've done, you know, and many, many people have done terrible things or sinful things when they're younger. And I think a lot of people think that, you know, God is merciful. And if you say you're sorry, you know, you have a shot at him. You know, of course, God will forgive you. But people are nervous about that, I think. And I think they're also nervous because they think, well, maybe I'm not gonna stop what I'm doing that's wrong.
Allia - So these are all kinds of things I'm going to put in this book. So that's the new one.
Valerie- That sounds very exciting and a very sweet reminder of who God is and, you know, just no matter what we do, God can walk us through, you know, the hard, the sin, the choices we've made. He can; he makes all things good for those who are called according to his name. So he can make it all right.
Allia - Right. Right. And that's a scary thing for a lot of people. Know, it's a scary thing because they say, I'm sorry now. Just like what was in the Bible, Jesus told the rich kid to get rid of all this stuff. And he wanted to. But then he said, Hmm, this stuff is too good. Not, you know. So that's why people, a lot of people, don't want to come back because they don't want to change their behavior, or they don't think they can change their behavior. But anyway, this book will hopefully help.
Valerie - I look forward to hearing more about that. Where can people find out more about you and your books, Allia?
Allia - Very simple www.Aliawrites.com, and that's LLIA Writes W RITES and all the books are there, not all the books, but the current books are there. If they want to see all 150-plus books, they can go on What is it? Author my author page, they have all of them. So Yeah
Valerie - Wonderful. We'll make sure to have those links in the show notes so people can find you in all your books easily.
Allia - Oh, that's good. And I will send you my, can't my brother be more like my cat? I think your children will get a kick out of it.
Valerie - Well, they will love that. They may not ever get a cat in our house, they, I'm allergic, but they will enjoy that for certain.
Allia - Well, it's a good book.
Allia - They have these new things that I volunteer at an elderly place for elderly people. They have these mechanical cats that look like cats. They purr like cats. They say meow. Yeah, it scared the heck out of me at the beginning. Yeah, because people who have Alzheimer's and whatever. And she's got this thing. And I thought it was a real cat. So maybe you need that in your family, right?
Valerie- That would be interesting to see what the dogs would do to that. We have two dogs.
Allia - Yes. Do you have a dog? My goodness. Do you walk them both at the same time? You do. Good for you.
Valerie - I do, yes. Every morning. Or they're going to tear up my backyard. Too fun. Well, thank you for joining me today, Allia.
Allia - Yes, thank you for having me. I always have fun when I talk to you.
Valerie - It is always a pleasure. And thank you for joining Allia and me on this episode of the Bookworthy podcast. Check the show notes for any books or links we discussed, and let us know in the comments what your go-to coffee order is. And be sure to join Bookworthy's family summer reading challenge to discover more great books together.
Happy reading.
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