But the town itself it had three people a rancher and a lesbian couple who run a bookstore. [laughter] but to come down the road rather goes, what is that . It is a yellow truck he said that is the schwan man. [laughter]. And you know, our world had to. We gave the team these things. They love to them. We still had half a case of ice cream sandwiches left. I was moral about it. Ive had experience with this. Theres another book of mine called right of passage where i discovered prairie dogs really like sweet food. So i justified it. Throwing all these ice cream thing which is out desert because there are plenty of prairie dogs in the area and those things were gone. That was the only dumping in the desert that we did pioneer style that im going to talk about. You mentioned the cd player at the beginning. If you held onto it, what did you listen to on the oregon trail and did you keep up on the news in any way. Whats the origination of your name, nicholas . Of his name . Of your name. My father used to say, i love my wife very much. We had 11 children. They decided to start naming the kids after the grandparents. My grandmother has a swiss dutch name from central pennsylvania. The cd player was so stupid. The bocce ball, it never got turned on. As far as the music that i wouldve listened to, okay, my daughter thought for years that maybe there could dad was kind of gay because of the music i liked, like Willie Nelson or the eagles, pretty immature stuff that i listen to. But i never listen to it. I brought the cd player along. It was amazing at the end of the trip. We were finally emptying the wagon and there was the stuff buried at the bottom and i thought wow, i didnt didnt even know the stuff was there. I heard part of the book is dedicated to you and your father. Can you talk about your relationship with him . So when we were kids we grew up on a horse farm and my dad took us on a covered wagon trip between our farm in new jersey and central pennsylvania. It was kind of the dream journey of my life. We got to get up in the morning and gallop ahead on my horse and pick out camping spots and all that kind of thing. Its the kind of thing everyone has a treasured memory of from their childhood. It motivated me a lot take this trip. Surprise me on the trip where the flashbacks to my father. We had a really great and loving relationship with my father and then a very tough relationship toward the end of his life because i was eight typical rebel rebellious pain in the neck kid. It really shocked me how strong those memories of him were. I managed to weave them into my narrative. I think people will enjoy that part of the book. What was the construction like of the wagons you were using . 100 authentic. I shouldve said this, our main wagon was a peter shortly wagon. That is a forgotten name but he was the biggest wagon maker in the past. I have a long history in the book. Everything was authentic. It was in the barn all these years and the only things that was rebuilt was the wagon box. Did the wheels have iron tires . They had iron, iron, not steel. We discovered that as we were going along. It was a bumpy ride. It gets hot and little pieces would break off and iron is soft. Steel is hard. We had original iron tires. As a boy, i got to see a wagon made by a a blacksmith which is north of where you were the trip is fascinating to me. When he got ready to put the tire on, he heeded it and put it on the wheel and as it cooled, it became iron. Did he put it in water . No. We are going to take two more questions. Okay, i know we have to keep moving. Other places where the trail has changed over time . Yes, this is one of the frustrations of doing this reading, any reading like this because the book is full of new stuff that people dont know about the trail. It wasnt really a single set across the plane, it was a collection of trails. That big part you saw on the map is an area we took because i i didnt want to go all the way south. In western wyoming, the trail is 150 miles wide. There are several cutoffs. The pioneers we took sections of several cutoffs to get across that part of wyoming. In other parts of the root, it would be 30 miles apart because they were coming from illinois to iowa. Most of the western pioneers take the steam steamboat up and then came over. Even here, the trail was 30 miles wide with improvements made over time. There are 40 cutoffs and alternate routes along the 2000mile trail. Where did you get the mules . We got the mules from james fort missouri. There was an amish community. It is one of the most unique communities because it is amish and german mennonites. Theres a mule trainer there who is pretty legendary in the horse world for training good mules and having good meals. I talk about in the book that we kind of had, not what i thought was the best mules but we had to keep going. We made a lot of mistakes on the trip, but the biggest mistake was i shouldve been out there months before driving that team every day. We got there, there, we made it a team with the wagon that i bought in kansas and hooked everything up and five days later we were gone. The first few days it was like whoa. It was a little while that first. We bought the mules from the amish and james port, missouri. That is just a little bit northeast. Lets have a hand for him and his book the oregon trail. Thank you. You are watching book tv in prime time on cspan2. Congress is out of session so we are taking this opportunity to brought past monday through friday as well is on the weekend. Up next, Chelsea Clintons bestselling book its your world, get informed get inspired and get going. Heres chelsea clinton. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to barnes noble. We thank you for taking the time jvx discuss chea clintons its your world get informed, get inspired and get going. She has always expressed an interest in improving the world. As a child she enjoyed a book called 50 simple things kids can do to save the earth today she serves as the vice chair of the Clinton Foundation where she is in advocate for childhood obesity, obesity, Climate Change and increasing opportunities for women around the globe. Chelseas latest accomplishment is her new book its your world. It explored some of the Biggest Challenges young people face and share stories of how future generations are making a difference around the world. Joining chelsea on stage tonight is coeditor. Just last year she was named one of the 25 most influential teens by time magazine. Join me in welcoming chelsea clinton. [inaudible] [inaudible] hello. Thank you all for coming. This is very exciting. Im excited to be here. I also have my questions on my tracfone i guess we will just get into it. Neither of us are quite as solid as we thought we were. I know this happens every time i really loved this book and we were just talking back there about how it felt like there wasnt, this was the kind of thing i wouldve loved to have when i was younger and you want to be educated about whats going on in the world and you also want concrete ways to actually do something about it. You mentioned the book that was sort of the catalyst for you, or one of them, when you were a kid and im wondering what other sources of influences or role models or experiences were like, kind of eyeopeners for you. As you heard in the introduction and as i write about its your world, i read 50 simple things that can save the earth when i was ten or 11. It had a profound impact on me because it treated me seriously as someone who deserve to know what was happening with Climate Change and pollution. It really empowered me with these practical things i could do as a kid in arkansas to make a difference on issues i cared about. I wrote its your world in the hope to have just a similar impact on one girl or boy somewhere in our country or around the world. When you ask about other things that really influenced me, me, certainly my parents were a major influence on me. Partly because they really expected me to have an opinion. They expected me to make an argument to support that opinion they wanted whatever i was passionate about or concerned about and they wanted to know what i was going to do to make a difference on what i was most concerned about. That was a tremendous gift they gave me that i dont think i really understood when i was growing up, but its something im really aware of now as a mom. How my husband and i can think about developing that same awareness and sense of responsibility to engage in the world around us and make a difference wherever and whenever we can. If an adult is not a parent or a teacher or more constantly in contact with young people, how do you think they can still be supportive in that way . Thats a great question. We were talking backstage about how surprised ive been about the cynicism of adults when i was talking about this project. If they were so dismissive like kids dont care, kids arent engaged. Nothing from my experience could be further from the truth. When i talk to kids they are so curious about the world around us and they are so attentive to whats happening. They are engaged and thinking about whats happening and how it affects them, and what they can do to make a difference. So when people say, how can i engage kids . I would say start by asking kids what they care about. Kids will tell you what they tell you up what they care about and whats inspiring them. I think its our responsibility as adults to support them and help them figure out what they can do to make a difference that will have an impact. That has absolutely been my experience with ricky because its for teenagers. I get so confused whenever i read about these concerns with millennials being disaffected or not caring about things or apathetic or narcissistic, and thats just not been my experience at all with the girls that i meet, and certainly dash. Certainly not your example of how youre leading by example. Its also true for kids. One of the reasons i wrote this book was to highlight the work of remarkable kids who are engaged in making a difference on issues that they really care about. Whether thats fighting hunger in their communities, like william who was the very first person i saw on social media this morning who took a picture with its your world. He started raising money and food for the food shuttle in North Carolina where he is from. Over the last few years he has literally raised tens of thousands of dollars and thousands of pounds of food. People who are working to bring clean water on the other side of the world. To feel that connection and feel that there is a fundamental vital right to water. I wrote this book not only because kids were so curious when i would talk to them about what was happening, but i also wanted to share the stories about the remarkable kids on the front line making a difference. It reminded me of, when i was a kid, kid, because kid, because im still kind of a kid, im still in school we talked about high school as it was in the far distant future, it really wasnt that long. Right, back in that day, i remember reading there were certain magazines for kids like nickelodeon magazine and they would have the occasional feature on someone like that. In school we would sometimes learn about kids who started charities or huge projects to raise money for causes they cared about. One thing that ricky readers are always asking me is i know what i care about, but i dont really know what to do about it. I feel like there is a whole kind of process where your beliefs are constantly changing but youre figuring out what you care about and what strikes accord in you and then its really intimidating to figure out concrete ways to do it. The one thing i love about the book is there are these list at the end of each chapter that have actual actions you can take some of them are things you can do individually. Some are just standing up for what you think is right. Some are about educating other people about why you think an issue is important. Some are about raising money in raising food. I hope the list give a real spectrum of options so any kid that wants to engage can engage in whatever feels right for her or him. Its okay if kids care about different things. I think its actually a good thing and its okay if what kids care about of vaults and changes because, one of the things i was struck by in talking to kids, while thinking about this book and working on this book, was how they felt guilty that they didnt know about something before. Instead of actually recognizing that as soon as they were aware of a problem and wanting to do something about it, thats a real source of optimism for me. I would hope it would be for them and their families as well. I wanted to ask you about this part where youre talking about your first attempt as a kid in Elementary School to be vocal. You write, i talk about issues i care about to anyone who would listen and hoped i wasnt too annoying because if i wasnt annoying and i was making a good argument that may be one more person would care about whales or elephants or giant pandas them before i started. Im really passionate about the issues that matter to me and we had a a very active dinner table when i was growing up. I feel like i am trying, this was especially true when i was in school, like, walk the line between not wanting to disrespect myself by toning down the way i feel about something or feeling like i have to make what i have to say more palatable, but by realizing that by making what i have to say more palatable it can be easier to get through to someone. I hear a lot from rookie readers who are working that out when they speak up in class or challenge someone in class and an argument or are trying to talk to their parents about something thats really important to them. I wonder if you have any advice on staying true to what you believe in but also wanting to engage in a helpful way. We always have to be true to what we believe in. If we ever start to feel that what were doing deviates from that, we have to re center ourselves. We also have to recognize that we cant let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If her trying to persuade someone of something, we have to think about who our audience is and what we ultimately hope to achieve. If were really trying to convince someone that may not be natural to them, whether its as simple as recycling or registering to vote, which is something im really passionate about, we have to think about what will be most convincing to them, not what first jumps to our mind. Recognizing that often there might be reasons people havent done things before. That may not make sense to us but if we attempt to understand what that might be, hopefully that creates more of a common space to ideally, persuade them for whatever we help hope that they will do which is the right answer. I think this is harder for girls and it would be disingenuous not to recognize that. Girls are often criticized for speaking too loudly or too softly or not speaking or too sharply or looking to pretty or too ugly when they speak, you get my point. Other things beyond the content of what we are saying. I think until we get to a world where everyone is judged by what we are saying, i think it is more challenging for girls. Just because it is more challenging doesnt mean we shouldnt get into the fray and argue for what we think is important but it also means we need to support each other and everyone can be a good friend. I think thats important to remember this conversation as well [applause]. You mentioned that it can be a source of optimism when kids that youve spoken to feel guilty when they didnt know about something before. Its because they feel a responsibility. The only reason they feel guilty is because they feel a responsibility to be part of the solution. When we talk on rookie about working out your beliefs and taking a few things from each column and frankenstein in your own opinion about something, so many girls do feel this guilt when their mind has been changed about something. I agree that its a really positive thing and i also think the first thing you have to do is forgive yourself for not having known about something before. I was wondering if you would be interested in sharing some of your first experiences when you were kind of developing your beliefs and finding dash when you were first realizing that they were tentative. Recognizing that we are all limited by our experiences and that we are limited by what we know and what were not exposed to or what we may not know or encounter. Im really fortunate in that my parents were exposing me to so much of the world. I was expected to read the newspaper and listen to npr in the morning. We were knowledgeable of whats happening in the world and i was expected to not only Pay Attention but to have an opinion and a point of view. I think one of the reasons those things struck me so significantly is because i hadnt quite realized in arkansas, which is landlocked, what was happening to our oceans because of Climate Change. What was happening to places that didnt look like arkansas because of Climate Change. That was so illuminating and humbling to me. Also recognizing that what i did in arkansas impacted what i did elsewhere. One of the things that i thought about and talk to my extraordinary editor jill, who is a very motivational yes give her a round of applause. [applause]. One of my real motivations for writing this book and one of the ways i remember being so impacted by 50 simple things was realizing how important it was to cut out the plastic rings around six pack cans of soda because marine life fish and birds were choking on them. Although that was was maybe happening in the rivers in arkansas it was much more likely to be happening on the golf course and elsewhere. So i intentionally cut up the plastic rings. I was Walking Around and knocking on peoples door saying you can do this too. For 60 seconds you can make a difference. I remember having a lot of guilt, thinking how did i not know this. How did i not know i shouldve always been cutting up these plastic soda ring. At some point i realized it was much more productive to take that energy to share with other people rather than just feel guilty constantly. I also think that when im talking to other, in the community that im a part of of young writers and feminists, there is never, i think people are comfortable calling one another out or sharing opposing points of view because there isnt this issue of ego or i thought i was a good person and now i guess im not a good person. Its more like we all understand that we are limited by our experiences and the circumstances that weve grown up in or what you kind of take in and internalize in the world when you are growing up. Then you are far more involved than most grownups i know. Thank you. I mean that seriously. Thank you so much. Im so thankful for the community that im in of other young women because theres not, it never feels personal in the sense that anyone its like we are acknowledging things are messed up and we need to change them and we may not have been previously aware of something that we were maybe even participating in but the more we can remember that there is a larger enemy and help each other out in recognizing these things, the more comfortable we all feel and it sort of radiates out among all of us and everyone is just trying to get educated and help one another. Itself sets a good example for all the people who look up to you, to realize that you can engage in the businesses that are making a a difference in making a statement without antagonizing other people with an open mind, with rookie. And with humility. You know you dont all have the answer. Right, with my own writing or acting, i dont really care what anyone thinks of it but with rookie, i really care what these girls who intended to help, think of it. You are doing it for them. Yes, exactly. Its not just my own art for arts sake. Thats the point to literally just make girls feel more safe in the world. Whenever they have feedback or criticism, we are all really open to it and we want that because its about their needs and they have perspectives as readers that we cant have. I talked to so many kids and ive had so many kids read parts of my books at different parts of the development because i wanted to make sure it was actually responding to my kids would find interesting in compelling and would have authenticity. I wanted to make sure that kids felt the way i felt when i read 50 simple things and thats that they were being taken seriously as people with real brains and hearts and spirits. I wanted to make sure that was true on every page the same way that i know you work with rookie to make sure that every post and every part that you put out into the world. I think young people have really sharp, very finely tuned radars for anything that feels condescending or presumptuous about their knowledge of the world and that was how i felt. Thats why i started rookie because i wanted a Team Publication that respected its readers intelligence and its so funny because there are so many ways in media to find out how young people feel and i think just going straight to them and asking what they need is the most effective strategy. Strategy sounds too calculating. Its not even that. Its a matter of figuring out what will resonate with someone on a level that will genuinely inspire them. I agree. Its certainly what i hope to do and i know its what obviously motivates you with rookie. To have real Guiding Principles and this dates back to the earlier conversation we were having on how do you ensure that you are doing what you feel is right but in a way thats effective, i think for rookie it is creating that faith for boys and girls but particularly for girls and that had been kind of government by the way you interact with your team and what you think about what you put out in the world. Ive been told that we are moving into the q and a part that was abrupt. Im just this is overwhelming is there a