The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Howie, The Unusual Bear by Laure Stack

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Howie, The Unusual Bear by Laure Stack Authorlaurestack.com https://www.amazon.com/Howie-Unusual-Bear-Laure-Stack/dp/B0FRGGRGDT Howie wasn’t your average bear. He looked different, acted differently, and did things unlike any other bear. Longing for companionship, Howie sets out on a journey to find a friend who will accept him for the unique bear he truly is. Will he succeed? About the author With over 20 years as an educator, Laure Stack has spent her career supporting children through their struggles and dreams. Her deep understanding of young minds leads to her heartwarming stories. Through Once Upon a Boy, Howie the Unusual Bear and more future books, Laure hopes to inspire children to dream big and never let doubt keep them from reaching their full potential.

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today's featured author comes to us from books to life marketing dot co dot uk with expert publishing to strategic marketing they help authors reach their audience and maximize their book success today amazing young lady on the show we're going to be talking about her books she's got quite a few books in the works. So she's a multi-book author. Her latest book came out September 16th, 2025 called Howie, The Unusual Bear by Lorne Stack. We're going to get in it with her, find out her details, and all the cool stuff that she's up to, and how you can enjoy the entertainment and education she provides. She's a retired special education teacher with 30 years plus of experience in teaching. And she lives in Lake Arrowhead, California, with a

husband, three dogs, two cats, she love kids. She loves kids. I'm learning to speak today, evidently. Animals and nature. Boy, that sounds like a good threesome to appreciate. Welcome to the show, Laura, how are you? I'm fine. How are you? I am excellent. I am excellent. We're glad to have you on the show. Give us any dot com's website, social media, wherever you want people to find you on the interwebs. Right now, it's authorlora stack.com. that's my main website for the time being and when it changes I will let everybody know sounds good so give us a 30,000 over you what's inside this book howie the unusual bear because in the classrooms today I am noticing whether I'm in kindergarten or 10th grade

kids are all different they're really different I mean when I was in school we're all pretty generic. And these kids, even in kindergarten, I mean, some will come in with pink hair, some come in with the punk style, some, they're all little individuals. And they really want people to respect that individuality. But it's very, it's important for people that are different to value who they are and and their differences. But it's also important for other people to accept people the way they are.

You know, you don't look like I do, but you still need to treat me with respect and kindness you would treat anybody with. I think kids from the get-go need to understand that they need to, you know, treat everyone with the same. Same respect. And, you know, kind of marvel at how different the kids are in your class, you know? Because they come up with the most incredible ideas, these kids. And, you know, but I've seen because somebody chooses to dress a certain way or there's just something about them. You know, kids will stay away from them. Yeah.

And I feel really, really badly for them. Because, you know, that child has so much to offer. It may not be what you and your friends think is important. But everyone has value. Every child has, you know, things to share with the world. And so that's where Howie came from. Ah. So how does it play out in the story with Howie?

How does, what do I give us some samples of maybe? What's he after? his journey? What is his, what is motivation as a character? His motivation as a character is to always take care of himself. As far as, I'm okay, this is who I am, how he knows who he is, he knows the things he likes and how he wants to live. And so throughout the book, he thinks, you know, I hope I find a bear just like me. He's looking, he's looking, but in the meantime, he's, he's, he's looking. But in the meantime, he's you know, planting a garden, building a log home, and snowboarding and getting together with all the other

animals in the forest and things that most bears don't do. And so he just, he takes care of himself in that way. Give up. I mean, he never gets, you know, down or out. So you see him proceeding through the book thinking, okay, if I never. meet somebody, you know, I've got to create this in my life and I've got to create that in my life. And, you know, and then I'll be fine. And he ends up having all of it.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So he found, you know, he found a bear just like him and a bear that shared his tastes and qualities. And, you know, and so it's really a message for kids to, you know, honor who you are, because who you are is important. You are not like any other person on this planet. We're all completely unique. And you value yourself.

And even if others don't value you the way you think they should, just hold your head up high and just know that you are fantastic, just like you are. Yeah. You know? We're all, you know, we're all into. You know, we all need to be graceful to each other. And, you know, I mean, the beauty of the differences between all of us, I mean, is important.

And it's complimentary. And I think more people need to realize that. You know, I mean, America was a great melting pot of lots of diverse groups. They didn't always get along, but they got along for the condition of all being Americans. And, yeah, and we're all different. We don't have to be the same. God, can you imagine if, you know, I just said epiphany, can you imagine if this world, if we were all the same?

Boring. I think you can, you know, one of the things I was harking this back to is the 50s, when the IBM used to have that standardized suit that men would have to wear to work. And it always had to be black. I think it was black tie or something. I don't have to go look it up. But, you know, it was black suit, black tie, black shoes. You know, it was basically mind-numingly conformist.

and everybody had to look the same. And, you know, and then along came the 60s, and suddenly there was color and music. And, you know, there was this thing where it just wasn't our way or the highway sort of mentality. There seemed to be this drabness in the world. And suddenly there was color and light, music, and, you know, and people that were boring and drab were like,

oh, this is awful, you know, whatever. No, it's change is good. it's healthy and and you know i mean god imagine a world where we just lived in that ibn sort of black and white world it i mean it was so boring you know now you see people you know they're all colorized on friday what's what they call that when you're relaxed on friday at work oh yeah dressed relax yeah yeah yeah but i'm thinking particularly today because there is so many so much division in society. And I know that trickles down. And so it's gotten harder, not easier, to accept people that are different and think differently and look differently. It's harder than

ever. Yeah. I think a lot of people are, I think a lot of people, you know, they just, because of, I think social media is really reinforced that because people have algorithms. And so they only see a reflection of them if that's what they follow. I try and diversify mine and I actually control mine. Every now and then I'll watch something too long like the other day. I watch one of those eating muckbang videos where the people eat 50 Big Macs in a sitting. And you're just like, and you just sit, they're just going, please don't make you stop. No, no, I care about you as a human being.

don't do that to yourself, you know. And I used to be really overweight and did that to myself back in the day. I didn't eat 50 Big Macs, but I need to have, you know, one or two, and everything, extra size. But, but, you know, then you know how to fix that in your algorithm. But, you know, I think people see too much of themselves. And they use that as, what's the thing that people do? It's a reticulator activated system in the brain.

And one of the reasons we, it keeps us from going crazy is, is we see other things that are like us and we validate that that, oh, I must be smart because, you know, I bought a red Chevy and I just saw five red Chevys on the road. So clearly, you know, it kind of reinforces our decisions. But I think it could go on steroids, especially with social media thing, where we start looking at people who are different and we see them as an enemy as opposed to, that's kind of an interesting flavor. You know, it's kind of like when you go to 31 flavors, you know, you see all the ice creams. You know, I mean, I like a couple of the ice creams as are my favorite, but, you know,

sometimes it's fun to find out what are the other flavors like and what they're up to. That's why I have a podcast. People come on and tell their stories because I'm sick of mine. And so is my audience. And so I get to hear other people's stories and I get to find out, why did you, why did you do that in life? That's kind of interesting. You took a different path this way. And to me, that's the real juice.

That's the real flavor. That's the that real, I don't know, I'm trying to think of a French word and I don't know, but you know, that's the flavor of life, you know, I love people that are different. Because I'm like, why did you, why did you do it that way? My name, by the way, is French. Yeah, oh, really? Oron de la Chappelle, but I got married and it's stuck. Ah.

Now, what inspired you to write this particular book? The Howie book? Yes. Oh, it's when. through the years watching kids come into the classroom. Remember I was talking about how they're all different. Uh-huh. Was there like an aha moment, though, where you said,

this, darn it, I'm going to write this thing. And what did it take to get it written, I guess? It was probably about three or four years, seeing kids at all different levels that were completely different than anything I had been at that age. And at first, I took it in because I just kind of wanted to get to know these different personalities. And the more time went on, it became just fascinating to me who people were and the kids.

And, you know, who they want to be, who they want to look like and sound and up. And, you know, and they need to, whether the outside world gives them. them the acceptance they need or they want or they should have, they need to respect themselves and make sure that they're keeping themselves, you know, away from the people who will be negative. Yeah. You know, this book can open up those conversations. Hmm.

Yeah, the conversations are really important. And this is targeted what age group of children would you say? I would say anywhere from K through three, Kinder through third grade. Yeah. Yeah. And it's important to learn when you're young, too. You know, I mean, we're not born into racism. We're not born into xenophobia.

We're not born into hating people that aren't like look or act exactly like us. That's a top behavior. That's a learned behavior. And so I think it's important that children get this message very early on that it's okay to be different. And, you know, a lot of them may be feeling their. different. I'm very different than the other boys and girls. And does that make me weird? Does that mean me bad? Does that make me, you know, I can imagine you have your conversation with this. I probably had the conversation as a kid. How come I'm not like, you know, there was there was

always, I was a nerdy little kid, skinny little kid, you know, I couldn't beat up anyone really. You know, and I'd be like, why come I can't be like the, those guys for the, you know, they're the star athletes and stuff like that. And but then I had to learn it. It was okay to be in my place, you know. I mean, people like them for them, but, you know, now people like me for me. And all those gym guys are fat now and old. And I'm just old and people like me on my podcast. So I win. I don't know.

I'm just getting funny books. Now, you have about, you have three books we're going to talk about today. And then I think you have a total of maybe six that's included in the works. Actually, actually seven. Oh, seven. No, six, six. I mean, you're just writing them as we're doing the show. here and keep, and just keep making more.

Almost. That's how prolific writers work, folks. We have some people that are on the show every three months. Yeah, they got a new book. And if they're with the big publishers, it's about every six months, eight months. You know, like the, we have the guys on from, you know, all the books like Jack Ryan and Tom, I forget to think, but, you know, all that, all that jazz. And those guys pump out books. They're like machines.

So that's good that you're doing that, though. The thing is, I've been writing since I was a toddler. I had nothing to do. That's what I would do. I would write. So let's talk about that. What was the inspiration? Were there any, did you read books and there was maybe a writer who inspired you?

Or did you just kind of, you just kind of, you said you were getting bored? So you just kind of found it was a good outlet for you. I loved to write. And when I was lonely, because I was not one of the most popular kids in the school. So I was kind of, you're just kind of overlooked. So what I would do when I didn't have kids to hang out with is we would have like this, I found this set of encyclopedias all about dogs, just in our garage. We moved into this house.

And so I took each one of those and went into, in-depth stories about these dogs and made them into books. And, you know, I didn't know it then, but I wanted to grow up and be a writer, you know, making that a career, but I didn't. I became a teacher instead. So I think this is just kind of like I, once I realized, oh, my gosh, I want to write again, you know, it just, boom. And I never stopped. That's great. That's great. Now, let's get into the second book that we wanted to talk about today.

I believe once upon a boy is the next one. Okay. Tell us about that book. Okay. That book came about because I heard an Asian folk tale. And it was about a man who sat under a wishing tree. He didn't know it was a wishing tree, but he sat under this tree. And he's pondering things.

And he says, you know, it would really be nice to have clean clothes today or, you know, something. And boom, he had them. It'd be really nice to have a new car. Boom. There it is. So he gets these things. And then all of a sudden, he looks at all the things, and he sits back and he goes, wait a minute, I couldn't have created that.

There's no way. And poof, it's gone. Because, and in my story, it's the same with a little boy who wishes for things. He doesn't sit under a wishing tree. But my character learns that it's not enough just to wish. I want this. I want that. But you have to know that you're capable and not give up.

You have to believe in yourself. You know, I wanted to be a teacher and a writer. So it was little. And you just don't give up. Things get hard, but you got to keep going. And that's what this book is about. It's about realizing that you are the key to your dreams. You are the, you know, your decisions are going to create your reality.

Oh. What's the name of this boy and tell us a little bit more about his character? Liam. Liam. Liam. I worked with a special ed, autistic little boy named Liam. and he was the cutest little boy you've ever seen darling and imagination and just and it was fun working with him and I would always look forward to seeing him when I would arrive at that school

whether I was in his classroom or not so when this idea came up I thought leon I'm naming him Liam. What a wonderful inspiration to sharing your book. And then what would you, I imagine all your books are targeted the same sort of age group. Would that be correct? Pretty much, except for my last two. The third one actually is for maybe fourth grade. Third, fourth grade, the leaf that went on an accidental road trip.

Okay. Based on a true story. Yeah. Really? basically. These leaves are hitchhiking, man. It's getting out of control. So I live in the mountains and my girlfriend and I were going into the valley to go to a concert and spend the night. And this oak leap was on my car, the whole trip. And it didn't blow off on the freeway. I thought, ah, things gone. Nope. A little part of it came off. But it was there

for the whole trip. And I said to my girlfriend, I said, I'm going to write a story about a leaf like this that went on an accident road trip now the road trip my leaf went on was not my trip oh i made up his trip in the book yeah you know you should charge that guy for gas money because he's just clearly you know just getting a free ride that's not appropriate yeah yeah i do that to my dogs too i tell him to go get jobs every day like quit free loading so You know, it's interesting how children can use their imagination to enjoy stories like this, where they can think of a leaf and think of as a human being. You know, we get old.

We kind of lose our imagination. We get kind of jaded. We were talking about this last few shows. And so it's great that, you know, there's these sort of resources that parents can have to read to their children. And one thing we always encourage on the show is not only get books for your children to read, maybe quit hand them in the iPad, folks. and not only that, read to them. My parents read to me.

My mom was reading to me in my womb. Her womb. It wasn't my womb. You know, I'm kind of possessive that way. So I'm the first child. It was my womb. I always tell my siblings that I took all the good DNA and smartness out of the womb. I just cleared her of all the shelves, took all the good stuff and left them with the crab, which is true at this point.

Anyway, I have some issues. So I think we all know that. But no, this is cool that, you know, can. kids can learn this, but yeah, parents reading to their kids, and we talk about this a lot on the show with a psychologist and scientists, you know, we are not built to look at 2D screens at mucks with us. And three-dimensional, especially reading, just encouraging grows the brain. We've seen the people that are on Twitter with two-dimensional screens. So don't, don't turn it like that, folks. And, you know, you might end up as a really insecure billionaire that has small

body parts. I don't know what that means, but. That's true. Anyway, I'm getting sued now. So anyway, it's the leaf that went on to expect a road trip. You talk about this. Tell us about some of the other books that you have in the works right now. Okay. But I'm going to go back one second to what you said about how adults we start thinking, you know, we're fuddy-detties. And I, for some reason, I think like kids. So that's what my brain does with a leaf on the car. that's where my brain goes. So it makes it easy. Another book that's coming out right now, I wrote about a dog we had.

He ended up passing, but it was a special dachshund we had. And we have two cats. And we live in the mountains. And they interact with squirrels, raccoons. I mean, everything in the mountains. And so I wrote a comical 11 chapters. story about Cooper, Winnie, and PD Panther, the adventures of all of those animals. So it's humorous, and it's probably for maybe third, fourth grade.

Because there's chapters. And then the next book that I'm doing is something kind of interesting, because I like weird things also. And I wrote a book about the cryptids of the United States. And do you know what a cryptid is? A cryptid?

Yes, accrupted. Are those those beetles that stand in the ground for 17? Okay. I don't, clearly. Like Bigfoot is encrypted. Oh, okay. Is there...

It's a creature that a lot of people have seen, but it has been scientifically proven. Ah. And so... Sounds like my soulmate at this point. I'm interested in all that stuff. So I researched all the states in the United States, and I found out that each state has a minimum

of five cryptids. Yeah. A lot of bigfoot's running around. Oh, yeah. Bigfoot's everywhere. And there's different versions. versions of Bigfoot. Oh, really?

I was shocked to learn about all the sea serpents in all our lakes. Oh, really? Almost every state has a sea serpent in a lake. I'm not kidding you. I believe you. I mean, it seems appropriate at this point. And so my book has, it talks about a lot of weirdness and weird creatures. And so it should be kind of fun.

And, yeah, the second book is about sharks. Oh. I love sharks. You're one of those people who likes the Shark Week there on the Discovery Channel? Not really, because they take sharks and their behavior and they kind of blow them up. And I don't like the attention sharks get as being man-eaters and, you know, oh, sharks. So I used to watch them. But since I've been swimming with them and kind of gotten to know sharks more, I think they get a bad route.

They're just, you know, sensationalized. I did an in-depth book about sharks. Oh. Or middle schoolers. Yeah. Yeah, because sharks are people, too. Really good pictures, huh? Uh-huh.

But it is in the works right now. It is being illustrated. Yeah. What do you find that you love about writing these types of books and targeting them towards children and stuff and hoping to inspire their imagination and entertain them? I will tell you, I talk to kids. I teach in everywhere from kindergarten to high school because I'm a substitute at this part of my life. And the older kids, I would tell them that when I was working on these books,

oh, that's a book I want. Oh, my gosh. How fun is that? I can't wait to read your book. And I said, that'll be probably about two, three years from now. You can read the ones that are published first. Yeah. All of them said, I want to read that book.

And I actually walked into a Barnes & Noble a couple of years ago. And I asked, where is the section where I could find a book like this? And they said, we don't have anything like that. And I went, oh, okay. I was like halfway through my book, putting it together. It's good market research. Yeah. So I thought, you know what?

You didn't before, but you have one now. That's great way to fill the gap because sometimes I see a lot of books that I'm like, I think this has been done, like about a few times. But, you know, it's funny. we, I was thinking that, you know, I can't remember a lot of the books that maybe I've read over the last two or three years. I mean, most of it's a audiobook. But I can always remember, and I think most people can, the books that shape them as children, they read, like, where the wild things are, I must have read that book like, oh, 10,000 times pondered over the pages.

Dr. Seuss was a huge impact on me, which is probably why I repeat everything and say stupid, simple stuff. It's a podcast, folks. And so, were there books that shaped you when you were a child that you remember? A lot of fairy tales. Ah. I and Dr. Seuss, but I loved

fairy tales. And I had books of them, thick books of all different kinds of fairy tales. And I kind of marveled at how kind of creepy some of them were. Here I am a little

girl, but I found them Kind of, I mean, some of them were all, but a lot of them were like, oh. So it just fascinated me. Yeah. And yeah, so that's basically, yeah, what else? I like to read about anything with wildlife. Animals, anything about any kind of animal. That was me.

Yeah. Animals are great examples of, you know, human behavior, but it's kind of a, an easy way to mirror back to us our behavior, but through a different sort of venue, you know, instead of a person going through that, we can see an animal going through that. And maybe we can just, I don't know, identify or it seems like a better story, but it's a great learning format. And it's also great to learn to appreciate animals and give them value. The worst thing I hate is when I see people that are grown that they don't, they have really

poor emotional intelligence. Maybe that's the way to put it in dealing with animals and caring about animals. and they have a real deference to the value in their and treating them well. I think the animals are angels on earth. I call my fur angels because they serve such a important role in our lives. Oh, yeah, yeah. I couldn't survive without mine. I don't know what I'd be without my dogs.

It'd probably be a mess. I'm already a mess, but I'd be bigger mess. We adopted a dog after that one dog passed. I won't even talk about that. But we waited a year and we adopted a female dog that was pregnant and we didn't know it. Oh, that's a surprise. That's a nine for one price. So we had six puppies.

Six for one price. Yeah. We kept two of the puppies. and basically, yeah, there are whole life. Right now I'm on a dog vacation. First vacation they've ever been on. I've got the whole family here. They're a year old now.

Ah. Yeah, because, I mean, dogs need some vacation time too. I mean, they work really hard nine to five at their jobs. You know, they're always commuting and stuff, digging holes in the yard, that sort of shit. A lot of work goes into it, pooping, peeing. barfing, whatever else they shouldn't have eaten up in the yard. I just got a puppy that was like nine months old that I adopted about two, three months ago. And so I'm going through the fun of the two years of Husky terror.

I call him the terrorist now. That's his new name, the terrorist. He terrorizes my older female puppy. And then he terraces me. He terraces everybody. But he's all love. He's just misunderstood, evidently. Oh, that's our Luke.

That's my loop. I don't know whose idea was it to put a giant Ferrari body onto a 10-month-old puppy shit for brains. But whoever's idea this was, I want to beat them silly because he's got way too much strength and power and size. He's actually bigger than my eight-year-old dog at nine months. And so he's just being, oh, he's going to be huge. And so he's just a terrorist. He thinks he's a lap dog, too. And you're like, you're like 50 pounds already at eight months.

No, you're not a lap dog. What kind of your dog? It's a husky. Oh, that's right. You said husky. Yeah. So they're, they're, huskies are basically like living bandsaws or tree shredders.

Like, I'm going to just rent them out to a tree shutter service. You can give them like bones and sticks and stuff and you're just reek. And you're like, you shredded that already? You know, and you have to keep feeding them. Otherwise, it's your couch that comes down. You got to keep. We have a lot of huskies up in the mountains. A lot of huskies.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. They're cool dogs. They're cool dogs, but there are a lot of work. Definitely a lot of work. So you got to be ready for them, folks. Just don't go get a husky. Learn about these dogs before you get them.

Because they're not like most dogs. You know, you tell them what to do, and they just go, that's really cool thought you got there. I'll get back to you on that, and I'm going to do whatever. I want. and they're escape artists. Oh, they are genies, man. If they can find a way to escape, they are out.

And they are gone in seconds flat, and they're running 500 miles an hour, whatever the next place is. That's where my whole community, it's okay. And they post it. I just got a husky running down. Okay, that's mine. That's the number one way they die, unfortunately,

is they escape. And they have no concept of cars. Like I've sat next to the row with my husky pulling on the leash and I'm holding her at the edge of the road and the cars are just zooming by within feet of her face and she just doesn't care. Whatever. She's going across the road. Oh, yeah. It's a miracle my dogs have ever lived at 10 years with some of the crap they've gotten themselves into. So as we go out, anything more we want to promote and talk about before we leave?

No, I just thank you for watching. and I hope you enjoy my books. I really appreciate being here. Thank you. And we appreciate having you. What an inspiring story. And it's so wonderful to see, you know, authors, you know, wherever we are in life that start to really excel and succeed and put out multiple books and really share their inspiration in the world. You never know whose lives with books you're going to change or what impact you're going to have.

But it definitely has an impact. I mean, sometimes people will come up to years later and they're like, hey, your book really, really impacted me and changed my life. You're like, wow, I just wrote it because I was bored one day, but thanks. That's great. No, you, I mean, that's what we do. We share our stories and improve life. So as we go out, give us your final pitch out for people to pick up your books and any dot com, social media, where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? Amazon.com. All of my books are on Amazon.com. They also will eventually be on my website, but they're not right now. So go to Amazon.com.

Thank you, Lord, for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming. Folks, order for books wherever fine books are sold. You can find Howie, the Inusual Bear, the other books we discussed on the show, on the Chris Foss show, links, and wherever fine books are sold. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, for your family, friends, and relatives, or I'll haunt you at night and to keep you nightmares. Go to Goodreach.com, that's Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, for just Chris Foss, YouTube.com, for Chess Crisvoss.

And I just threaten my audience every now. Then you've got to keep them in line, right? Thanks for tuning in everyone. Be good age of this day safe. We'll see you next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning, consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed. All right. Great show.