I didn't start out writing to give children hope, but I'm glad

Host: The rain had just begun, soft and hesitant, falling like memory over the small bookstore on the corner of Maple and 3rd. Through the window, the world outside looked like watercolor — the streetlights blurred, the shadows long and trembling. Inside, the air was warm with the scent of old paper and coffee, the soft hum of a record player spinning something slow and nostalgic.

Jack sat on the floor between two tall shelves, a book open in his hands, his grey eyes tracing the words without really seeing them. Jeeny sat behind the counter, legs crossed, a pencil tucked behind her ear, her brown eyes following him quietly, the way one watches a friend trying to outrun a thought.

A small lamp glowed between them, its light golden, tender, and full of dust motes — like a miniature sun refusing to die.

Jeeny: “Beverly Cleary once said, ‘I didn’t start out writing to give children hope, but I’m glad some of them found it.’”
Her voice was soft, half-lost in the rhythm of the rain. “Funny, isn’t it? How sometimes we end up giving people what we never meant to.”

Jack: (without looking up) “Or what we never had.”

Host: The record crackled. A gust of wind pressed against the door, making the bell above it tremble faintly. Jeeny leaned forward, elbows on her knees, studying him.

Jeeny: “You sound like someone who’s forgotten what hope feels like.”

Jack: (smirks) “Maybe I just outgrew it. Hope’s a kid’s game. Adults deal in realism. You don’t find hope in balance sheets or hospital rooms.”

Jeeny: “No, but you find it in stories.”

Jack: (finally looks up) “Stories are lies with nicer endings.”

Jeeny: “Then why are you sitting here, surrounded by them?”

Host: The question hung in the air like smoke. Jack looked around — at the shelves lined with hundreds of spines, each one a life, a dream, a whisper. The lamplight reflected off the covers, turning the titles into small constellations.

Jack: (sighs) “Habit, maybe. Or nostalgia. My mother used to read to me every night before she died. Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins… the kind of stories where the world didn’t end, just got messy and then somehow made sense again.”

Jeeny: “Beverly Cleary.”

Jack: (nods) “Yeah. I didn’t know then, but those books were the only time I believed life could be fixed.”

Host: Jeeny stood, crossed the small room, and sat beside him on the floor. The rain deepened outside, drumming softly on the roof, steady as a heartbeat.

Jeeny: “You see? That’s what she meant. She didn’t intend to give hope — she just wrote truth gently enough that it didn’t hurt.”

Jack: “Truth doesn’t care how you tell it. It cuts either way.”

Jeeny: “But that’s where you’re wrong. Hope isn’t about denying pain, Jack. It’s about translating it into something that makes you want to wake up tomorrow. That’s what her stories did for kids who didn’t even know they needed saving.”

Host: The lamp light wavered as a breeze slipped through the half-cracked window. Dust rose in tiny swirls around them, like ghosts of forgotten afternoons.

Jack: “You think stories can save people?”

Jeeny: “They already have. How many kids read Ramona and saw themselves — flawed, confused, ordinary — and realized they were still worth loving? That’s salvation in its simplest form.”

Jack: “So, what, you think writers are saints now?”

Jeeny: “No. Just mirrors. Honest ones.”

Host: Jack leaned back against the bookshelf, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. His fingers traced the edge of the page, where a faint smudge of ink blurred the margin.

Jack: “But Cleary said she didn’t mean to give hope. It just happened. Doesn’t that make it an accident?”

Jeeny: “No. It makes it real. The truest hope isn’t designed. It just leaks out of people who refuse to stop caring.”

Host: Her words landed gently, but they lingered, sinking past the noise of reason. Jack looked at her — really looked — the hardness in his face softening.

Jack: “You sound like my mother. She used to say stories were how we keep the dark from talking too loud.”

Jeeny: (smiles) “She was right.”

Host: The rain grew heavier now, drumming steady against the glass, but inside the little bookstore, time slowed. The record had finished spinning; only the faint hiss of the needle remained, like the soft breathing of something asleep.

Jack: “You know, I think I used to believe that every book had a happy ending. Then I grew up, and realized the endings never really end — they just stop being written.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s because endings aren’t for stories, Jack. They’re for people who stop reading.”

Jack: “And what if the story runs out of light?”

Jeeny: “Then you become the light.”

Host: Her words glowed in the small space between them, brighter than the lamp. Outside, a car passed slowly, its headlights sweeping across the wet street, catching the faint shimmer of rain.

Jack: (quietly) “You know what’s strange? I think Cleary might’ve been wrong. Maybe the atheist has no heaven, the cynic no dream — but a child? A child always has both, hidden in the same heart.”

Jeeny: “That’s what her books did, Jack. They gave children permission to be children. To laugh at scraped knees. To find adventure in disappointment. To believe the world isn’t cruel — just complicated.”

Host: Jeeny reached over and took the book from his hand — Ramona Forever — its edges worn, the spine frayed but sturdy. She turned it over once, then twice, as if it were a relic.

Jeeny: “She didn’t write to give hope. But she wrote with honesty. And honest stories always lead you back to hope — whether you meant to or not.”

Jack: (softly) “Maybe that’s what I miss most. Honesty that doesn’t hurt.”

Jeeny: “Then start writing it again.”

Host: The words hit him like the quietest thunder. Jack looked up, the faintest trace of disbelief on his face.

Jack: “You think I still could?”

Jeeny: “You never stopped. You just forgot your audience.”

Host: The clock above the door ticked, its sound blending with the rain’s rhythm. Jack leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his voice low, almost reverent.

Jack: “You know, it’s funny. We spend our lives chasing something grand — money, purpose, legacy. But Beverly Cleary spent hers describing a little girl losing her eraser or fighting with her sister. And somehow, that mattered more.”

Jeeny: “Because the ordinary is what saves us. It’s where all the secret hope hides.”

Host: A small laugh escaped Jeeny’s lips — soft, pure, like a candle being lit. Jack smiled too, a rare and fragile thing, as though something long asleep inside him had just stirred.

Outside, the rain began to fade. The streets gleamed under the lamplight, washed clean. The world felt new again — not perfect, but possible.

Jack closed the book gently and handed it to Jeeny.

Jack: “You’re right. Maybe hope doesn’t need intention. Maybe it just needs someone brave enough to tell the truth.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. You write the truth. Hope writes itself.”

Host: The camera would have lingered on the two of them — the lamplight flickering, the bookshelves stretching into shadow, the faint scent of paper and rain in the air.

And as the night deepened, one quiet truth unfolded like the turning of a page:

that the most powerful hope is the kind we never mean to give —
the kind that slips through the cracks of our stories,
and finds its way
into the hands
of someone still learning how to believe.