Ryan Seacrest, who just lately changed Pat Sajak because the TV host of the sport present Wheel of Fortune, has a formidable listing of tv credit that features internet hosting American Idol and the annual Dick Clark’s New Yr’s Rocking Eve particular; he’s additionally hosted the weekly radio program American Prime 40. Now, Seacrest and his youthful sister, Meredith Seacrest Leach, the chief director of the Ryan Seacrest Basis, which builds broadcast media facilities in youngsters’s hospitals for younger sufferers to make use of, have collaborated on an image ebook, The Make-Believers, illustrated by Bonnie Lui. Seacrest (in Los Angeles) and Leach (in Nashville) spoke with PW by way of Zoom about their relationship then and now, the facility of 1’s creativeness, and the way, throughout their childhood, Seacrest loved pretending that he was Casey Kasem, who hosted American Prime 40 for a few years.
How did this ebook come about?
Ryan: There are two paths to how we obtained right here. First, the ebook was impressed by the way in which my sister and I’d play make-believe or placed on completely different performances and entertain our dad and mom and our household as youngsters. And the opposite a part of it, for me, was impressed by assembly quite a lot of youngsters at pediatric hospitals across the nation and seeing their boundless, limitless imaginations. The ebook actually celebrates that creativeness and that ambition that children have.
Meredith: Sure, as Ryan talked about, throughout our childhood we performed make-believe—we had been creating exhibits. He pretended to be Bon Jovi, and I used to be Madonna. My daughter, who’s 5, likes to play, and I get very impressed by her and the way lovely it’s to see a younger youngster and their creativeness and the place it may well take them. It’s like my daughter’s love language is to play, proper? So it’s such a enjoyable time after I get to play make-believe along with her and we bond via it.
What was it like for the 2 of you doing this undertaking collectively? Did you two bicker such as you may need as youngsters, or was it extra of a collaboration between two adults?
Meredith: Ryan’s a boy, I am a woman. We’re six years aside. We by no means had a giant combating relationship, so we form of fell in a candy spot with our age distinction. We at all times actually cherished taking part in collectively. He was my massive brother who would come with me when his mates would come over and let me take part. And once we’d make a few of these productions and movies, I’d be the sunshine lady with a desk lamp, flashing it with a music video. He was sort to at all times embrace me, and now we work along with the Ryan Seacrest Basis. We’re simply lucky, I suppose, that we love being collaborative and love working collectively and love being siblings. I want I had a juicier reply. Ryan, what do you assume?
Ryan: Ah, you simply made me love you extra. I believe that’s a fairly correct description of our relationship. I used to be a protecting older brother and when Meredith grew to become an grownup, it was at all times crucial to me to know precisely who she was hanging out with. We at all times had a really symbiotic relationship.
What was the writing course of like? Did you two craft each phrase collectively, or did considered one of you do extra of the writing after which the opposite added to it?
Ryan: I believe we began conceptually with the story, the character line, after which Meredith elaborated some extra on it. It’s not our experience, making youngsters’s books—however our editor fine-tuned our phrases, and the true focus of the story that’s within the ebook now. Meredith, what would you say?
Meredith: Sure, I believe we began with simply the massive thought, after which we put some phrases collectively. We’re lucky to have an incredible writer, Simon & Schuster, that actually is the professional on this as effectively, guiding us via all that, and an exquisite illustrator, Bonnie Lui, who was capable of take the phrases and produce them to life along with her lovely illustrations.
Do you assume the purpose of this ebook, that youngsters’s imaginations can take them anyplace, is even potential in a world the place youngsters are given cell telephones as quickly as they will discuss, and play with their telephones continuously?
Ryan: I believe that’s why the timing is so proper for a ebook like this: you make the purpose that children are accessing info at youthful and youthful ages, and every thing on the planet is obtainable at their fingertips. So to actually deal with the antithesis of that, and to dig deep into your individual dreaming and your individual ideas and your individual creativeness, that’s why the timing for me is ideal for The Make-Believers.
Meredith: Sure, I believe too, with iPads and all of the completely different electronics that children have entry to, it’s about placing these to the facet and actually utilizing your creativeness, having some boredom, and utilizing what’s round you. You can also make a stick right into a magic wand, otherwise you can flip sure on a regular basis objects into one thing tremendous inventive. That’s what we wish to have a good time. And we wish to encourage dad and mom to play make-believe with their youngsters, and to place their very own gadgets to the facet and have a good time their imaginations too, as a result of it’s so essential.
What’s the important factor you need youngsters to remove from this ebook then?
Meredith: It’s all in regards to the energy of make-believe, like I’ll say to my daughter, “Generally you don’t bear in mind your desires at evening, proper? However there are desires you may have along with your eyes open, and it’s desires that may encourage an aspiration inside your self that might really turn into true.” I imply, I’ve to say, with Ryan, it’s loopy, he pretended as a child to be Casey Kasem, and now he’s counting down the hits himself on American Prime 40. He would make these tapes for our drives to the seaside, and he would rely down hits. He was taking part in, pretending to be a DJ, and it really created one thing inside him that he lived out in actual life. And, you understand, we’d host exhibits and do all this stuff, and now he’s been a bunch of many exhibits. So I imagine, even with youngsters, there’s one thing which you can fake to be and play at doing as a child that may spark one thing that might take you additional down the highway in life.
Ryan: At that age, youngsters could not perceive the facility of visualization and the facility of manifestation, however it may well by no means be underestimated. On the time, I didn’t know what these phrases meant, however I knew that there was a love for what I used to be doing and making these countdown tapes for my household after I was 9 years outdated. There was one thing there, in my head, that I now look again and notice was actually highly effective.
You’re working collectively via the Ryan Seacrest Basis to arrange these Seacrest Studios inside youngsters’s hospitals across the nation, and now you’ve written a youngsters’s ebook collectively. Do you’ve got plans to collaborate, on one other ebook or anything?
Ryan: The Ryan Seacrest Basis is our focus, and we’re persevering with to construct media facilities in pediatric hospitals; some new ones are approaching line. However who is aware of? If this ebook is one thing that individuals join with, perhaps there’s extra life to The Make-Believers as effectively.
Meredith: We’re really opening a brand new Seacrest Studio in our hometown of Atlanta, we’re bringing a brand new one to New Orleans, and there might be extra bulletins of different youngsters’s hospitals that we’re working with. Together with that work, we simply needed to convey this story to households—hopefully it’s inspiring to youngsters and perhaps to folks too. You’re by no means too outdated to make imagine and to have desires that hopefully can manifest themselves to come back true.
And a bonus query for Ryan. You’ve simply been named the host of Wheel of Fortune, the premise of which is that every thing has to do with luck, it’s all about spinning the wheel and hoping for one of the best. How do you reconcile writing a ebook whose premise some may take into account contradictory to that of Wheel of Fortune?
Ryan: Nothing contradicts Wheel of Fortune in my thoughts. That is one thing that, if we return to make imagine, Wheel of Fortune is a present that I watched as a child, and I believe it’s secure to say, I most likely pretended to be Pat Sajak. So, to me, this really goes proper according to the entire idea of dreaming massive.
Meredith: That is only a enjoyable, candy ebook about creativeness and dreaming, and about sharing your desires with your loved ones and mates and the place it may well take you. It’s simply one thing that we needed to share, and we hope that individuals get pleasure from it and put it on their bookshelves and browse with their youngsters.
The Make-Believers by Ryan Seacrest and Meredith Seacrest Leach, illus. by Bonnie Lui, Simon & Schuster, $19.99 Oct. 8 ISBN 978-1-6659-4987-3
