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Play it Again with Courtney Strong and Carissa Robertson

Writer's picture: ValerieValerie


BookWorthy Podcast
Trail of Unexpected Gifts












 

REPOST FROM December 2023- Giveaway is no longer active



Valerie -All right, today we have a special treat, a blast from the past. Back pre-kids or just one kid in tow are on the way. These two ladies and I were in the same Sunday school group trying to figure out marriage and parenting. We are talking with Courtney J. Strong and illustrator, Carissa Robertson. These two have teamed up on a new Christmas picture book, The Trail of Unexpected Gifts. This book seeks to unwrap the wonderful story behind the gifts given at Christmas. Welcome to Bookworthy Courtney and Carissa.

 

Courtney -Hi, we're so happy to be here today. Thank you, Valerie.

 

Carissa -I'm super excited to talk about the book and just catch up with you.

 

Valerie -This is so fun. I was really excited to see you guys post about This book and this project you guys have working on but before we start talking about the book I want to ask you a little bit about Christmas in your home. So, what is your favorite Christmas tradition around your house?

 

Christmas Time

Courtney -We have a tradition where we love to start the season. There are certain people who will remain unnamed in the household who don't like Christmas music all year round, whereas I probably could have that. So one of our favorite traditions is actually knowing when that starts. So we do have a defined time, and that is when we get all of our Operation Christmas Child gifts together, and when we drop those off, That is when the consensus is that we can start the Christmas music and start watching all the movies and doing all the things. So that day is a very fun day for us. Start making goodies and things like that.

 

Operation Christmas Child

Valerie -So fun. We've done Operation Christmas Child for many years and it's, we have a very strict no Christmas music till after Thanksgiving rule, but I kind of like yours. I like, because usually that drop off season is the week before Thanksgiving. How about you, Carissa?

 

Carissa -Mine, hands down, all my kids would say, I didn't think it was a big deal at the time, I just started doing it when they were little. When we decorate our Christmas tree, whenever that is, usually right after Thanksgiving, we make, I make a soup, they call it snowball soup, and for some reason that is a very big deal. It's a chicken, basically chicken dumpling soup, but instead of like noodles or the dumplings or like biscuit dough, so it looks like snowballs floating in it. And

Family Cooking

that literally is my kid's favorite. And they'll ask for it, you're like in the middle of the year and then the other kids will, you know, cut them off and like, nope, you can't do that, can only be when we decorate the tree. So snowball soup is our big tradition that they literally all look, and it's just basic soup, but it's just the idea that we always eat this exact soup when we decorate the tree and decorate the house.

 

Valerie -So fun, making me hungry. It sounds delicious. Now Courtney, tell us a little bit about this book.

 

Courtney -So the Trail of Unexpected Gifts started actually when I started just having this thought about a child really wanting something for Christmas. And the thought just kind of came to my mind, like a word picture of a child really wanting something big for Christmas, the parents wanting to give it to them, but knowing it would be a sacrifice and what that deciding would look like when the parents decide, let's go ahead and do it anyway. And then that word picture further unraveled. And the Lord knocked on my heart and said, this is what I want kids to imagine, I want families to imagine in their living rooms is that when the Bible


Family Reading Bible

says that the Trinity was together before creation, there was a moment when they decided, knowing all that would have to happen and all the sacrifice that would have to come, they went ahead and decided, yes, we're going to give this to them. And so trying to help people imagine with words and pictures what that was like, and that they could be on the receiving end of that beautiful story is what I wanted to show. So that's kind of where it began and just wanted to give everyone that picture of that present with their name on it that really did cost so much, but that they wanted to give anyway.

 

Valerie -That is so sweet. I love how you interwoven the gospel into just Christmas in a new way. And like we hear, you know, in Christian circles, a lot about, you know, Jesus at Christmas, Jesus being born, Jesus being the best gift, but it wasn't just him coming at Christmas. It was, he came fully knowing what was coming ahead also as part of the gift too. I love that. Now, Carissa, what was it like illustrating this book?

 

Painting

Carissa -Um, it, I learned a lot. I learned a whole lot. Um, I was so, I told Courtney from the very beginning, like, I just don't do people as long as you broke, doesn't have people in it, but you know, God stretches you in new ways. So I, I learned how to draw people. And, um, that was, yeah, I was very proud of myself by the end. Um, it was a, honestly, a lot more work than I thought, but, and I remember thinking. I don't even think I told Courtney this. I remember thinking, I think I have the hardest job of this project because it just took a lot of time. But then the editing part at the end, I was so surprised how much editing took. I mean, I wasn't involved in that, but I saw all the emails and all the messages between Courtney and the publisher. And I was really surprised at how much time that took and how important it is to get all those words right and all the grammar in. Then I thought, no, that Courtney had the harder part. But no, it was fun. It pushed me out of my comfort zone, which was really good. And honestly, it's always been a dream of mine to illustrate a children's book. And like literally for years, I've thought that. So it was the perfect timing, the perfect opportunity really.

 

Valerie -So sweet. And I've always known that you've been so talented and artistic. And I remember when we lived in Houston, just seeing how you brought art into your kids' lives, into your own home. And it's kind of fun to see you stretching yourself and doing something for kids, too. Because I think in a children's book, the illustrations are just as important as the words, because you're able to communicate 10 times more with a picture than even just a word can communicate. And so I love that you guys have teamed up on this. Now, as a part of this book that others might not know is kind of your heart for how the profits or what you guys earn from these books is going to. Can you tell us a little bit about your heart behind the proceeds that are coming from these books?

 

Vision Rescue Logo

Carissa -Yes, so all of the royalties and all the money goes straight to Vision Rescue. They are actually they'll be celebrating 20 years this year, so they've been around a while. They're in India. They started, I mean overall, like the overall picture is kids in the slums, their main desire is to get them off the streets and educated. And so it takes a lot of money to do that just to feed and educate kids. And so to keep them from being trafficked, which India is the number one country for trafficking, their way, rather than, you know, a lot of organizations will take the kids that have been trafficked and they're rescuing kids, but we do prevention. So, and I say we, because we're very involved in the company, we redirected the nonprofit for about four or five years, and then have hired staff now that do a lot of the work for us. We've passed that on, and now we're just great ambassadors. And promoters of the nonprofit, but they work in the slums, putting kids, they started with school buses and they put the, turned the school buses like retrofit them to be classrooms and the kids get on the bus, do school on the bus and they feed them and then they get off and they, almost like a bookmobile, we go around different neighborhoods and they go to the next slum and the kids would get on and they, now they've upgraded to brick and mortar buildings because they can reach so many more kids that way. We still have a few buses that move around in the cities in India. But it's just a ministry dear to our heart that we got involved in maybe seven years ago.

 

Indian Girl

Valerie-You've been involved with that missions team for a very long time, I feel like. And what got you attracted to this particular ministry, Carissa?

 

Carissa - Honestly, God just put it in front of us. We were trucking along in life and had some pretty big things come up in our life that made us reevaluate life from just brain surgery to a near drowning of one of our kids. It's just, we refocused and kind of zoomed out and I thought we want to do something that has kingdom impact. And God just put visual mesquite before us and we jumped in with both feet and in India, we were going twice a year, two or three times a year really, for many years, and just fell in love with the people and the culture and what this organization does, sharing the love of Jesus, but also meeting physical needs, which sometimes they're not ready to hear all that you have to say when they're starving and living on the streets. So you have to address all the needs to get to the spiritual needs also.

 

Valerie -that's always the first step in whether it's missionary work in India or even in our own neighborhoods is a lot of time you have to build that relationship, build that emotional need or fill that emotional need before you can really start working towards that spiritual need that we all do have. Now Courtney, what do your kids think about this book?

 

Courtney- They have been very involved, Valerie, with this book. They have actually helped me in the editing process. And Chris, I don't know that I had the hardest job. I'm gonna say you did have me. I think still think you had the hardest job in this, but they were, they both write themselves. And so they have both written stories and they are, they're both little writers too.


Storytime

So they helped me. I really wanted to see from a kid's perspective, but also they have very good editorial skills. So they helped me a lot with the editing. They, I had written the story out, when I first began the story, I wrote it out not knowing what I was going to name the children in the story. And so, you know, that's always kind of fun. Like what you're going to name, like something, right? We all love to do that, especially word people. And so I was thinking of cute little names for the brother and sister. And then all of a sudden it hit me that I should name them from the stories that I used to tell them from when they were growing up. I had this one family, the Applegate family, that I would tell my kids about over and over again. They would get in all this silly antics and trouble and different things would happen. And I would tell them stories all the time, going to bed or in the car about this same brother and sister, Ralph and Mallory. So I had to name them Ralph and Mallory. And it was just so warm to me because we got to bring to life really, especially with Chris's illustrations, what they were always dreaming up in their mind. And something really sweet that Chris had did is she said, well, What do your children think Graft and Mallory look like? And so initially from the very beginning, she had them draw a sketch out what they had in their minds of these two kids the whole time I've been telling the stories and she went off of that to make the picture. So it was beautiful. They love the story, they love it. They're very involved.

 

Valerie -Now Carissa, what do your kiddos think about this?

 

Carissa -My younger ones paid more attention, my older ones not so much. They didn't get as much into the story, but they saw the paintings laying around my house for a year. So they'd always walk by and like, oh, you need to change this about her hair, or why'd you put her in that color? And so they had opinions about more of the illustrations than the story. I feel like the story kept kind of changing a little bit. And so they were just focused on the actual illustrations, but it's surprising how many opinions they had about just little details about

watercolor painting

what the kids looked like and in the backgrounds. And I asked their opinions, like, this is for children to look at, so what do you think? And especially even as we got to the cover, because I just felt like the cover was really important because that can, I mean, that's, I was like, you want kids to want to see, you know, read it when they see the cover. So I was, I was asking a lot of opinions at that point.

 

Valerie -It was that kids are really good at giving you opinions, whether you want them or not. I think with one of my own books was I got the pictures from an illustrator and. There were male characters and they're like, they look like women. I'm like, is what my, I think 10-year-old said at the time. I'm like, oh, I guess they need beards or something. So I had to type back to the illustrator and be like, Hey, could you add beards because apparently, they look like women. So it was very helpful insight, I think, to find out. Now, when did you guys decide to team up and do this book together?

 

Courtney -We, I contacted Krissa, I think, it was actually a couple of years ago, and we, I kind of threw the idea at her thinking, okay, so we've been friends with Adam and Krissa for years and years and years, seems like from the beginning. And actually, when you talked about Christmas traditions, we have one of our favorite Christmas traditions because of them, which is we hang snowflakes in our kitchen and we got that from them. So, you know, it's all intertwined. So, because of our relationship with them, that's how we got involved with Vision Rescue. And


Christmas traditions

so, because I knew Carissa would be a wonderful partner, if she would say yes, I knew she had a lot on her plate. I knew she would be wonderful talent and I would love to see her drawings, but not just that, I wanted to do something that would take the story that I knew would align with the heart of God and make him smile. And so I immediately, I knew I wanted to give everything to Vision Rescue. That was a early decision. And so I just asked Chrissa if she was up for it. So we kind of started praying about it, collaborating. There was a day when God said, go ahead and call her. So I did. And we actually took probably about nine months off of just kind of doing life. And then we got back on it the next year and said, okay, maybe next Christmas we can have it out.

 

Valerie -And that's this Christmas. Yay, so exciting. Now, Courtney, this is not your first book. Can you tell us a little bit about your other book, Preoccupied with Promise?

 

Courtney -Sure, sure. So my first book came out a few years ago, Preoccupied with Promise, which is a six weeks Bible study for women. And what I realized through counseling and just my heart for women's ministry in general is that if our minds can be preoccupied with the

Preoccupied with Promise Cover

problems of the world, the Lord has given us the same capacity to be preoccupied with promise. And so just kind of taking women through that journey of what does that mean when, for example, God told the woman at the well, if you only knew the gift of God. And so how to teach women to really know that so that we're not looking back on our lives and saying, oh, if I had really known that, that would have changed everything. So that's the premise of that book. And I think it's been a lot of fun to see women and myself learn from that and grow.

 

Valerie -Most definitely, the woman at the well is definitely one of those characters that we can all relate to. And there's so much depth to that character as well. Now, Courtney, did you always want to be an author?

 

Courtney -Yes, I feel like every decision as far as what I wanted to be with when I grew up kind of in the back of my mind, I knew I wanted to write also. And I probably remember writing, like creative writing was my favorite class, always, hands down. And my cousin and my sister, when we would get together at Christmas time, my grandmother said she would just pick up notebook paper for hours after we left because all three of us, we love to write and my sister is also an author and speaker, and my cousin was a professional journalist. So, I guess it all turned out, but we always were doing that from the time we were cousins. So, little kids.

 

Valerie -So fun. Family and passion for sure. Now Carissa, when did you start drawing and painting?

 

Carissa -Oh, young. I mean, probably the same as Courtney. You probably had drawings on everything laying around. I mean, I still do. It's all corners of my house. There's always something going on. I mean, yeah, all through. I'm in high school, especially, I guess. I painted murals through high school and did that as my side job. My own brother's mowed lawns and I

Sketch artist

painted murals. That was my thing. And then I kind of put it aside because once you have kids, you just don't have time. And I just thought, well, you can't do art and have kids, the kind of art I wanted to do. So I honestly put it away for years. And then probably, I would say maybe 10 years ago, a friend, so right after my youngest was born, probably, I saw on Facebook or somewhere on social media, one of my friends that had four or five kids was doing all this painting and posting and all. I thought, you can't do that when you have kids. How does she have time? And honestly, that friend inspired me to give it a shot and I pulled all my stuff out of the closet, dusted it off and honestly, I've been kind of painting ever since and just doing little projects here and there. And so I was happy to have one that could be published and something I could pass on to my kids and just something I can take with them one day.

 

Valerie -Very cool. Now, Carissa, what is your, do you have a favorite children's book other than your own right now.

 

Carissa -Um, honestly, I have not even thought about that in so long. I feel like my kids are not into the Childern’s book stage anymore. Um, honestly, I do. Yes, mine, mine literally jumped to chapter books and I haven't, um, and I haven't really thought about that in a while. Um, let me think on it while Courtney says hers.

 

Valerie -Good thing about children's books, they go from board books to YA. Go for it Courtney.

 

Finding Winnie Cover

Courtney -I really like the book Finding Winnie. So it's the story of, you know, World War I, how kind of Winnie the Pooh came to be, Christopher Robin. I really love that story because it has so much of the warmth of the fiction that came out of that, but then the true story behind it. So I like the backstory of that.

 

Valerie -Definitely one of the favorites around here. It's just fun to take a character that's so well loved like Winnie the Pooh and to find out where he came from that it was actually a bear that got to experience World War I. And so yeah, that's one of our favorites here because we love history and it was just neat to see, like you said, fiction and history being intertwined in a picture book, not just, you know, because a lot of times you hear those stories as longer novels for adults, but it was fun to see it in the children's book form. So.

 

Courtney -Yes, yes. And I love how they ended it with that idea of, you know, new things opening and the seasons of life. So I think any age could really enjoy that book.

 

Valerie -That's definitely Carissa. Have you thought of any?

 

Carissa -No, I keep seeing all these books in my head and I can't think of the titles of any of them. Like ones that I remember reading over and over but I just honestly the titles are not even jumping out. I feel like we just did a lot of Bible stories. Maybe we didn't do that many children's books. I just remember a lot of like Bible story books. I feel like we have the Bible in children's form and 15 different books all over the place. I feel like we really pushed that. I mean I remember the obvious like Good Night Moon and a few like that but I'm trying to think their favorite. Okay, the one that pops in my head just now as I'm trying to think of a name,

Count on Golf

it's called Count on Golf. And I'm sure you've never heard of it. I remember reading that with my oldest literally every day and the pages are falling out. I wouldn't say it's like this super inspirational book, but it's about this little bear that goes golfing. And I just remember Adam read that to Lillian every single day for years. So that's the book that pops in my head where I remember the pages coming out because we read it over and over. And I just remember they were counting golf items, but I can't remember the inspiration behind it wasn't super deep, but I remember the illustrations. That's usually what I remember is the pictures. I guess that's how I don't remember the words as much of the titles, but the pictures, I remember all the pictures and the illustrations of that book and others that we've read to our kids.

 

Valerie -Definitely a clue that you've read it plenty of times. It's funny how odd little awkward books like a bear playing golf will be what sticks with your kid or what they want to read over and over again. Because I think I remember a book about a grasshopper golfing that somehow was one of my kid's favorite books. I'm like, why? I mean, my dad is a scratch golfer, so I grew up like watching golf every weekend, so golf is not exactly my favorite thing. And so I'm like, why, why are we reading a book about it? But it's just what they wanted to read. It's just an odd, fun little book. Well, ladies, I love talking with you guys. Courtney, do you have any other books on the horizon?

 

Reading in a bookstore

Courtney -I don't think yet. I think I, one of the things I love is just, this probably comes out in that it's a family book, but love spending time with family. So after this comes out, I'm going to have a lot of experiences with my own family and then I will get inspiration maybe to do something else. So just really, you know, hitting the ground running again with family after this book launches and making more memories with them, I think will spark something else. However, I will say that both of my children have ideas for me. So they may be with me on the next project. So, they already have some ideas.

  

Valerie -So fun. How about you, Carissa? This is your first children's book that you've illustrated. Do you think you'll step into other projects?

 

Carissa -Yes. Um, I think so. I've done one other kind of adult devotional book of sorts. Wasn't near as involved as this. And so every project you just learn more and then you get kind of antsy to try it again and try it different or do it better. So yeah, I feel like I've come full circle. I just, a couple of days ago, talked to a friend that wanted to hire me to paint a mural in her dining room but I have not done that since high school. Like I was saying earlier. So I was like, okay, maybe I'll pause on books and pages and go back to walls for a while. I don't know. So I'm always trying something new and dabbling in. I feel like art can take so many different forms and whether it's on walls or paper or, you know, big or small, it's, there's so many


painting supplies

different projects out there. So yeah, I would definitely be interested in doing some kind of book in the future again because I've learned so much from it. And Courtney was so easy to work with. I did not realize that authors and illustrators aren't good friends usually. Like they don't have, I just thought they meet for coffee and discuss it all. And so I'm just so blessed to have this relationship with Courtney to work side by side where I can text her back and forth and be like, hey, do you want this? Do you want to change this? Do you want to do this? I didn't realize that a lot of illustrator-author relationships are not that close. And so that probably made our job so much easier because we could just bounce ideas off each other all the time. So, yeah, she was great to work with and just a fun team to be on.

 

Courtney -Absolutely. I was so grateful for you, Carissa.

 

Valerie -I know from the pictures I've seen, that you guys have done a really good job of hiding things, and my book is in the mail right now, so at the time of this recording. But even just within the pictures that I've seen, you can definitely see how your relationship together really, that back and forth that you guys have has really made the images even that much more rich, and the words even that much more rich, because you guys really teamed up well in this project. Now, where can people find out about your books?

 

BookWorthy Interview Quote

Courtney -Thank you. So we will try to keep, we'll be keeping people updated on social media. So on Instagram and Facebook, if you want to follow Courtney J Strong, we will have all of our updates from both Carissa and I shared on there.

 

Valerie -Wonderful. Thank you ladies so much for joining me today.

 

Carissa -Thank you.

 

Courtney -Thank you. This was great.

 

Valerie -And thank you for joining Courtney, Carissa, and me on this episode of the Bookworthy podcast. Check the show notes for any books or links that we discussed and let us know in the comments what your favorite Christmas tradition is.


Happy reading!

 


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