The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Mice and the Ice Capade by Carley Smith

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

Mice and the Ice Capade by Carley Smith Amazon.com The poor family of mice was exhausted following a long summer of storing rice for the winter months. Together, they learned ways to create fun and simple ways to use things they had and things they found so the whole neighborhood could enjoy a huge celebration on ice.

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Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm Oaks Voss here from thekrisvossshow.com. Beautiful. Ladies and gentlemen, they are the latest things that makes official. Welcome to 16 years, 24, and episodes of the Chris Voss show. And what we need you to do is if you would do this before we interview our amazing new author, what we talking to today, go to goodreads.com for just Chris Voss refer your family and

friends, tell them if they really truly love you, they should go to the Chris Voss show websites to subscribe to the podcast, but if they don't, well, then they're out of the wheel. No, I'm just kidding. Don't play that way. That's not nice. Go to facebook.com for just Chris Voss, linkedin.com for says Chris Voss and let's see Chris Voss one on the Tik Tok. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Voss show. Some guests to the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today's featured author comes to us from bookstolifemarketing.co.uk. With expert publishing to strategic marketing, they help authors reach their audience and maximize their

book's success. Terry, amazing little lady on. We're going to be talking about her first and new book that is kind of angled towards kids. And of course, I know a lot of adults that are kids, so they can probably read it too. Everyone can read the book. It is called Mice and the Ice Capade out August 15th, 2023 by Carly Smith. And we're going to get into it with her, talk about her experience experience and probably get some ideas and if you're interested in being a first-time book author, you know, she probably has some ideas on how you got through that, how to get through that journey. She is a retired special education teacher and has been writing poetry since her youth and has always dreamed of publishing

a book. For over 30 years she dedicated her career to teaching young children with special needs, a role that she considers the most meaningful and rewarding in life. She lives with her husband in a small town surrounded by the lover, extended family, including several great grandchildren who live nearby. It is to writing her lifelong passions include gardening, sewing, tanning, photography, birdwatching. That's always good to have, and simply enjoying the beauty of nature. Whether her words through her words or her time outdoors, she finds joy in quiet creativity and heartfelt connection.

Welcome to the show. How are you Carly? Well, I'm good. Well, you calm down just a little bit there, Carly. It's great to have you. Thank you for coming on the show. Give us, where do you want people to find you on the interwebs or I know you have a pending website you're working on. Is there any socials or anything you want people to look you up on?

I'm on Facebook. My Facebook address is cf.smith16 at outlook.com. Pete Slauson There you go. So, give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside this book? Mary F. Maas What's inside the book? Pete Slauson Yeah, give us an overview if you would. Well, it's a story about poor mice, little mice, and they live in a rice field. And they are busy during the summertime trying to store rice for the winter months. And they work real hard. The family has, it's a mother, dad, and they have children. So, the children are also helping them do

the work outside. And so, then they get this done, and they decide that they're very tired, and they would like to celebrate some way. And so they do that by having an ice skating party. And so the whole book is a story about how they get ready for that, how they plan it, and how they work to get it done. And they find things outside and they go to a trash dump to find things to make, to use for their parade and their party, their ice capade. And that's pretty much what the story is about. It goes into a little detail. And here's a picture of the book. I mean, here of the book. Here's the book.

And so who is it targeted to? What age group? You mean what age group? Well, mainly children, but I found that a lot of teachers enjoyed it. I've gone into some schools and read the book to children and to classes. The teachers appreciate the poetry. It's written in poetry form. Some of the older classes that I went to were fifth and fourth, fifth and sixth graders, and they were a lot of them were learning how to write. So the teacher let me come in, read to them. Then I also went through some dos and don'ts and some things that you do when you're writing. How you practice and you rewrite. Before you do that, you have to maybe do some research,

decide on the idea, and all those little points. You know, we just went over several pointers before we read the book. And then afterwards, the students were able to ask questions regarding, you know, how I did certain things. So that was kind of how that went. But now it was that the thing that inspired you to write the book or was there a moment or personal story that sparked the idea on top of that? The way I, the way I ended up writing the book, I didn't intend for it to be a book to begin with. It was, I was, I belonged to a zoom writing class

and our mentor gave us, she would give us time to write the actual writing during the during the zoom class and one day she gave us the plan was to she gave us words to choose from and we had to choose three words to write something and we could write a poem we could write a three words to write something. And we could write a poem, we could write a story, we could write any little thing. And then we get back together and we would read what we wrote and let the other group and the other members

of the group listen to what we wrote. And we would only have like 20 minutes or so. And so I picked the word mice was the main word that I and I think one of the other ones was parade. And so I wrote this little poem. And I started writing it. Of course, in the 20 minutes, it wasn't finished. And so later on, after not just after the zoom class, but several weeks, probably months later, I decided I kind of wanted to publish a book. So I had this address of this publishing company and I called them. I had the phone number and I called them and they asked me if I had a

manuscript ready. And I said, well, no, not exactly a manuscript, but it was a poem that I had written. And at that time I had finished the poem. And I thought, well, this poem could be turned into a story. I mean, it tells a story. And I told her a little bit about it and so on. And she was interested and she wanted me to send the manuscript. So that's where it started. And it just kind of took off from there. And they, like within about a week, they called me and accepted my

manuscript for publishing. Congratulations. And so congratulations. So that's, that's how it all began. Now you spent, I think, what did we say? 30 years, uh, in, you know, working as a special edged teacher or something that effect, I think, for over 30 years you were in the career of teaching young children.

So you probably spent a lot of time maybe reading to children or going through books with them. I know one of my mom was a teacher and so she would read to them. I worked in three different schools. The first school was a public school and I was a para. I wasn't a teacher yet. I had had the degree, but they hired me as a para in the classroom.

And this was in the special education classroom. And I did work with children, you know, then just more or less as a para and I did some substituting in that school too and then I did that for seven years and then I got the opportunity to go to a school that was called United United Cerebral Palsy. And this was a special school for children with disabilities. And they were birth to three. And so I worked there for, I think it was 12 years. I worked with them. Of course we read stories, you know, easy stories for them.

Picture books and a lot of different kinds of books, you know, easy stories for them, picture books and a lot of different kinds of books, you know. I also did some home-based teaching during that time I worked there, and I could take my own books with me when I went to visit the kids. And then the third school was a state school. It was, this is in Missouri, St. Joe, Missouri. And that's where United Civil Policy is also located. And the public school was located in the little town where I live. It's just a little town of 200 people. And we're all pretty much country people.

But anyway, this last one, I was there for 11 years. And so I think that totals up to about 30 years total. During that time of going to United, working at United Cerebral Palsy, they hired me first as a teacher's assistant. And then they told me they would hire me as a teacher as long as I went back and finished my early childhood special education certificate.

And so I was willing to do that and worked at the same time, finished that. And so then later, then I was hired at this Helen Davis State School. So I, you know, I have quite a bit of experience working with special education kids. And you know when it entertains them, you know how to, you know, how to, you know, get them motivated and what stories maybe intrigue them, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Uh huh. Yeah, it's pretty interesting.

You know, my mom worked with kids for I think 20, 25 years as a teacher and boy teachers are just the greatest people in the world. They, they really help lift kids, they give them hope. She still meets people this day that they grew up with growing up and they'll meet her in the store and, you know, hey, I remember you. Same thing. Mm-hmm. And you get really attached to the kids and the parents as well.

You know, the parents just loved it when I was going into their homes, you know, and the kids would get excited when I came. It was just one of those things that's very rewarding. Pete And now you found a broader way to reach even more children. Writing books, you know, people around the world can order off of Amazon, so you got all that going for you and everything else. So good for you. And now let's talk about the book inside. Why'd you choose mice as the main characters? I think we kind of fleshed that out, but why did you stick with that? And what do they symbolize?

Is there any symbolization there? Why did I stick with mice as the characters? Is that what you asked me? Uh-huh. And do they symbolize anything? Why did I stick with mice as the characters? Is that what you asked me? Uh huh. And do they symbolize anything? No, not really. Um, just happened to be that word and, um, Mike, my, uh, imagination just kind of ran away with me and I started thinking about what these little mice type people could do. And I just started writing and thinking and imagining and I just created this silly story. I'm not sure how, but.

Pete Well, I mean, that's pretty wonderful. I mean, a lot of these times, you know, we talked to a lot of novice like yourself on the show. And you know, we talked to a lot of novels like yourself on the show and You know, it's interesting where they find their inspiration and sometimes they just have sometimes they have like just voices that come to them In their head and I'm like wait, isn't that schizophrenia? But you know, they'll know I mean good I Was just gonna say and and I like to write poetry, and I had written it, started it out as a poem, and then the way it was written, I kind of went back and added a lot of more verses, and you know, when I finished it, I just, I don't know, it just happened. I don't know.

And that's the beauty of that inspiration, And then, of course, it sounds like you went through the gauntlet of finding your voice, right? Finding how to write and learning all the structures and all that sort of stuff that goes into it. And so, it's quite the journey to go down, but it's kind of fun once you learn how to do it, you can write more books. It's kind of fun once you learn how to do it, you can write more books. The book celebrates creativity, resilience and community. Why, why do you like these themes, especially in today's world? Oh, well, I think it all goes back to my childhood because the way I grew up, our family was very poor. And not that I'm rich now, but I learned a lot of things that are written in this book. You know, I learned how to play for one thing.

You know, we had to survive. We did things that a lot of more wealthy people didn't have to do you know um and so i kind of put that in this book somehow you know it just it's there the uh what was the other one besides community there was another let's see how you talked about let's see uh let me see where i got a whole list of creativity resilience community and creativity yeah creativity i think i've always been creative when i was working i was always able to create When I was working, I was always able to create bulletin boards and activities. I always made some homemade activities for the kids, just simple little things. You know, these kids I worked with were very basic.

They didn't know a lot of how to do a lot of the basic things. And so I was creative and tried creating things with color or different textures and those kinds of things that those kids don't have access to. Community, I believe that, you know, kids today that would read this book, they need to learn the things that they that they take from this book are that being creative, the mice had to be creative and create things to use in order to, for example, when they made signs they were advertising their parade and their ice capade skating party. They made signs to invite the community to come along with them and to come and celebrate it in their ice skating rink, which was a puddle of water that froze and that's what they skated on. And so the mice had to be creative and figure out how to make the signs. They used, they went to the dump and found things. They found a toothbrush that they could use for a paintbrush to paint the signs.

Think of anything else creative. The kids now don't have to do that. They have too many video games and televisions, computers, and so on where they don't get outside and make their own games or their own toys anymore. They just don't have to do that. Uh, community wise, I think the kids, I just think they need to learn how to get along with other people, um, be in the communities for a socialization or one main thing, you know, to be around other people.

Mm hmm. So, yeah. And you don't learn that when you're looking at a phone all day. And all that stuff. That's correct. Yeah, I forgot phones. Yeah. It's really important that, you know, people figure this stuff out and, you know, interpersonal relationships.

I mean, you're going to have to, you're supposed to have to deal with people on a one-to-one human basis all through your life. And if you can't master that, well, you're in trouble with relationships and everything else. What is the story you think say about celebrating life even in difficult times or economic situations like you talked about? I think I just believe anything is possible. These mice found that out by being able to celebrate. They didn't have money to go somewhere to celebrate, so they made their own party, their own skating party.

In order to do that, they had to make things to get there. They made floats to go from their home, their little rice hut, down a gravel road to their frozen ice puddle in order to skate. And so on the way they used us, again, they made floats out of shoeboxes. They decorated them with acorns and pine cones and rags to make flags with and different things from, you know, from trash. And they created that and they got the community to go with them and they went and they had fun on the ice. Well, you know, the thing, the great thing about children is they have just an immense, almost limitless imagination because they're not jaded and locked down like us adults,

right? They still see the world with possibilities and the beauty of that, et cetera, et cetera. And yeah, I mean, that's, it's just a while there. Excuse me. What was the most rewarding thing for you about writing the book? I think for me was when I got the call that my manuscript was accepted. That was the first reward.

But then after the book was published, written, finished and published, I think the reward was being able to read it to children, to go into the schools and to read it to my grandchildren and provide it for them. And in the schools, you know, just go in and, and read it and watch their reactions when they heard it. I think that was the biggest reward. What was your biggest challenge? Writing the book, being able to end it. I wanted to just keep writing.

I, uh, I, I was writing and, uh, I couldn't figure out how to end it. And so I, because they had had the, was going to have the ice skating party and I thought well now what, you know, what do we do now? And so I kept reading it over and over too. And another challenge was, like I said, to end it, but it seemed like it was incomplete at first. And I would read it over and over and over and it seemed like there was something missing. And so I went back and I think I added two more verses to it

because it just wasn't, it wasn't all there yet. And then I, I don't remember what I added, but I had to, I had to fix it, you know? And so I think that was the challenge. Pete Yeah. Yeah. Well, sometimes you got to find that ending because it sounds like you like writing so much. Is there an, maybe maybe another book either with the same characters as a continuum or maybe a new standalone book? You're thinking about writing Yes, I'm I'm thinking about a sequel to this one. I Don't I don't really have a title yet that the I Have the idea and I have started writing it, but it's, it's, it's not very

far along yet. I guess people can follow along with you. Yeah. The idea behind this one's going to be the grass is greener. You know, they always say the grass is greener on the other side. And I think that's going to be the, the, the meaning of the book. Yeah, that will, that'll, that's a good lesson. A lot of people don't learn that lesson until it's until they're older.

Yeah. Yeah. So the, uh, and so that'd be excellent to, uh, you know, see some new books and stuff and all that stuff. It gets easier to write books as you go. Uh, what, what are some of the, I'm sorry. It is in the works with this, uh, books for life marketing companies. So I'm, I'm working on it, getting ready to work on it with them.

We'll be excited to see it. So how has been your experience with book signing school visits and engaging with readers shape your connection to the story? I really got under, I just really enjoyed doing that by seeing the students' reactions to the book. I was always well accepted into the group when I went to the schools. They would set up the overhead projector for me to show my pictures, the pictures in the book as I read it. And then, well, I did a little activity beforehand with the kids. I didn't tell them anything about the book first. We did this little activity with the kids and they most of them were the older kids.

And I only went into elementary schools up to sixth grade. Yeah. But I took some objects with me. I took I think was five objects and when I got there I would invite, I had I asked the teacher to choose five students to come to the front of the classroom and then I gave each one of them one of these objects. And I asked the kids to use their imagination. I said, you've got to use their imagination for this activity. I said, use your imagination and tell me

what you could use that item for other than what it is used for, what it's supposed to be used for. And one of the objects that I took was a toothbrush and one of the objects was a little rag and one of them was a tuna can. And the kids had some pretty good answers, you know, the kids would come up with things like for the can, it could be a bathtub for the mice, or it could be if you turn it upside down, it could be a table or a chair. The toothbrush, they all thought of the paint brush or a back brush when they took a bath

in the tuna can. And, you know, just silly responses like that you know but I wanted them to use their imagination before they heard the story so it would click as they were getting the story you know what the mice were actually using you know and how they did that so that's kind of was the activity but the kids just and the teachers were also real receptive to me. They they appreciated the poetry part of it. And we she had me a couple of different schools. I went to had me go over writing skills because they were learning how to write. And we would go over like, you know, how important it is to learn about punctuation and capitalization and spelling and all those kinds of things, you know, before you turn in your manuscript, it all has to be proof read and corrected. And then another thing was to write.

When you write something, it's not done. You can always rewrite it. You can always make corrections. You can always make changes. And those kind of skills were all talked about. Kids had a lot of questions. So they took me more into my story than I think I was in it when I wrote it.

They really brought everything out to me. It was just fun. Very enjoyable. Pete Slauson And you know, kids are at that wonderful age. They love the imagination, they love the creativity. So it sounds like your story really plays into that and helps kind of engender that sort of mindset for them and they can have fun with it, you know? Is there any sort of moment that you usually see children light up when you read the book

to them? Is there any special scenarios or parts of the book they like more? Well, I think it was the same place that I lit up that when I saw my pictures in my book before it was published when I was approving my pages and that was the page where the mice were on the ice actually skating, you know, with the moon shining, you know, it was can I show you that picture or have you? Please do. I'll show you that picture or have you looked at the book? Yeah, please do. I'll show you that.

Let me find it. Okay. It's right here. Okay. And it's, uh, they're all, uh, they're skating on the ice, right? Mm hmm. They won. They did.

And I also chose that. I also chose that for the cover. That's the same page as the cover. Pete And did you, what advice would you give to other authors that are trying to bring meaningful books into schools and communities? What advice would you give them? Because I imagine there's a lot of people like you who are like, I want to write a book someday. Julie I think go by what you know and what you have learned in life. Some of the things you have had to learn and use your imagination use your creativity just and don't put it off don't do it put it off like I did. I was

77 when I published this book. and congratulations, it's never too late Right and You know if you're dreaming about publishing a book or being an author It's it's never too late. I I did it and if I did it anybody can do it did it anybody can do it. You just have to try. Keep writing. Don't stop. You know, don't just make a way to do it. That's what I had to do. Make a way to do it. There's always a way if there's a will. That's what I hear. So, well, I'm glad I love that inspiration that you bring in everything else. So let's see, what else do we have here? If what do you want, what do you ultimately want readers young and old to take away from

your book and think about after they've read it? the for it, you know, and I don't know. The same things we just said, you know, yeah. So, uh, as we go out, give people a final pitch out to pick up your book, order it up and all the good stuff. A final what? Just final pitch out, uh, give people a final pitch, tell them where they can buy the book off Amazon, etc. and any social media, etc. Yeah, it's on Amazon and Barnes and Nobles. It is in some of the bookstores.

I am working also, well, and it's not completed yet, but it's getting too close to being completed a Republishing of this book And so it should be coming out this month So you might watch for it. We're using the same title and we're adding we're adding a subtitle to it So that will be coming before too long. So we'll look forward to seeing a new book from you. Okay. I would appreciate anyone purchasing it and, uh, commenting that they enjoyed it afterwards and giving me some reviews.

There you go. So I appreciate the time being able to be on here. And we appreciate you. I mean, what a great message. There's a wonderful message of enlightening kids, raising the spirits, giving them an imagination, teaching them community, and all that good stuff. So thank you very much for coming to the show. We really appreciate it, Carly. Thank you again. Thank you. And order the book, folks, wherever fine books are sold, Mice and the Ice Capade, out August 15th, 2023 by Carly Smith. Thanks for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Forchess, Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, Forchess, Chris Voss, Chris Voss 1 on the

Tik Tokity and all those crazy places. Be good to each other, stay safe, we'll see you next time!