Maya interviews author Rani Shah and reviews her book Wisdom from a Humble Jellyfish

Key Takeaways

[Music] ha I'm a science kit this book is called wisdom from a humble jellyfish and other self-care virtuals from nature by Ronnie Shaw it's about a little bit about each animal and Ronnie Shaw the author writes about each animal and how we can learn a little bit from each animal and how that can help us with self-care and it's a really good book because it's kind of funny in a way but it's also fun to read because it's like you take animals and you turn them into advice and then it's like an advice book but it's an animal book and it has a lot of funny things about animals themselves some of the animals are like a jellyfish or a wombat or there aren't just animals but there are also plants and one of the points is like an avocado tree and there's lots of other things and she the author Rani Shah named a few things about each animal and she names very interesting things too this time it's really exciting because we have the author here with us and I'm going to interview the author and ask her a couple questions hello is Rani hello miss Maya are you good look at this shirt as strong astronomically weather that's it I said astronomically awesome awesome that's on it it's wonderful how are you good did you learn about all the animals who wrote about at the same time that's a great question so the way I researched this I didn't I actually you know I had a couple animals in mind like I definitely knew I was right about the jellyfish and you I wanted to write about prevent monkeys but some of these animals I definitely had to do some digging so for example the shrimp chapter I had no idea that shrimp are so incredible and like kind of creepy and crazy and cool so I had to I probably did that research towards the end so it was like a really long journey and I had a lot of friends and family and co-workers suggestion emotional research so it was awesome animals are my favorite things so I got to do research by watching planet Earth and reading cool books and this is a never-ending process and it was wonderful so maybe I'll even write another book with more animals there's somebody tried it about the research will really never end did you like writing the book writing the book and I think was probably the most fun thing I've ever done it was extremely enjoyable I got to research things I love researching but there were moments where it was really hard and I felt like giving up but I didn't because I have supporting me I just felt like this is a really important topic so it was really fun but sometimes really fun things can be really hard and that's okay because at the end of the day I got them some super cool book out of it so it's totally worth it and I would love to do it again if they get the chance why did you write the book that's a great question so the reason I wrote this book is because I absolutely enjoy reading about animals and learning about them and I actually wrote a really cool blog post about animals and I wrote this blog post people on the internet really seem to like it so once people started liking it I had a book company reach out to me that asked me to write it and I said you know what this is gonna be a really hard challenge but I think it'll be worth it because who wouldn't want to research animals today and talk to other people like you who also enjoy animals so it was the best I also really enjoy jellyfish so if I had the chance to have a book with the word jellyfish in it I was gonna take the chance I like jellyfish I'm gonna taste an animal good job what made you want to write about the word monkey oh very cool question so the burbot monkey first of all there's so many species of monkey right there's like I mean chimpanzees and gorillas already a whole different section on primates so then you have monkeys and there's so many species Reigate and vervet monkeys are is one of the many so for that chapter I don't know if you remember but it was all about communication and how when you're learning something or someone's teaching you it's about being patient and knowing that it's okay to make mistakes everybody makes mistakes we're learning something new so the revetment he came to mind after doing some research on animals that show forgiveness and show resilience so that was really exciting for me because the way they communicate right first of all I can communicate which is so cool like if they see a killer eagle or something they'll go to the ground if they see a deadly snake they'll go to the trees to save them and their families so the verbed monkey decided to write about because it showed even if you're a small baby monkey and you're trying to communicate the adults will forgive them for making mistake and also the way they handle mistakes is really nice because even though they know the younger ones are learning they don't dismiss them or make them feel back to make a mistake they teach them but that was a really important lesson I think no matter what no matter what grade you're in knowing that you can always get better and learn for your mistakes is super important so you never give up just like you are there any other animals that you really liked or wanting to know more about I can try and do my best I like the sound cloud one one did when did you learn about the sunflower one oh okay that's a good question so sunflower a lot of people think that they always face the Sun but it's not true and I know you read this chapter um that one I started looking at because when I think of a happy flower I think of sunflower it's super bright right it's huge like you look at them in real life right as big as their face they're so big so not only that but I'm not okay I think I'm talking about looking on the bright side it's just really important right like right now it sounds scary outside right but it's important to stay optimistic which means looking on the bright side and making sure like we made it two months down and two months ago we would have been like ah so much time but now we totally did it so it's really important look at the bright side like today's interview was like my bright side of the day so the sunflower totally came to mind because they also grow following the bright side when they're babies on flowers they follow the Sun and it's really important for us I think too because when we're sad it's important to look at really bright things so they came to mind immediately and I was like them when I like a chapter about the shrimp I really liked it because it made me think oh I'm smaller than the other kids at school but I'm still pretty big I can still I do my math like all the other kids yeah good good you are just as bright and just as smart doesn't matter if you're tall or short or Y doesn't matter and the shrimp you're so right is the perfect example of that right like shrimps eat you just very sad but some of them are really really awesome and even though they're tiny they come in different colors and different sizes oh yeah right and that's big I was always a small as could to my class but it doesn't mean that I didn't have any power it didn't mean that I couldn't really make an impact and shrimps are crazy right like they do all these really insane things one of my favorite parts of the book was talking about how the pistol trim I don't know if you remember that one it makes a really loud noise and it was insane like during some of like the wars the US would have they would park their submarines by giant colonies of pistol shrimp because a pistol shrimp would be so loud but the sonar communication that the submarine would need to like talk to people would be blocked so that enemies couldn't even hear the submarine or see that it was there because a pistol trim makes so much noise and things like that you know you have a lot of power and you're small creatures and I'm so happy you got that permit and if anyone makes you feel small don't let them you're good at mass keep it up I'm good at reading I'm gonna everything everybody else old school it's the best interview ever had to so you can add that to your list what one was your favorite chapter that you wrote mmm interesting question okay my favorite chapter to write and her research was the creepy spiders so the reason I like this chapter so much is for many reasons I love the message obviously which is if you have a goal or you know something you really want to accomplish in your life I feel like a lot of times we're told there's only one way to get there but that's not always true there's different ways to get to your goals and so I love that message because I can relate to it another reason why I loved writing it is because spiders I think we kind of assume spiders or just like those creepy things that like show up in our house sometimes I think you forget how important they are to the ecosystem right and the way that different spike just like this book I actually don't even know that difference about different shaped buttons like I knew a couple of them did but I didn't know how some spiders have golden colored webs I don't know that some spiders actually take kind of a colosso type thing and like throw their whether to prey to capture it so that chapter was just so interesting to me because I knew spiders were cool I don't think they were that cool so that was insane and I kind of hope I see more spiders now I want to discover what kind of webs are beating then maybe you can discover what it which type of spider it is Oh totally because depending on the species and you know they'll have different types of web so this gets me one step closer to understanding what's around me so that's really good point my favorite chapter was through a wood frog because it's really cool at phrases and unfreezes right do you think you would want that ability would you like to kind of freeze and unfreeze when you want yeah right that would be so cool it also be a little inconvenient if you're ever going skiing you're like oh you're stuck on top of the top of the hill but Oh crazy I recommend you and all your friends you have a chance ask your parents to go on YouTube and look up um you know the wood frog the freezing video and there's actually videos of it being frozen and scientists gently putting it in some like warm water and you see it come back to life and it's really really cool because it totally just looks like a tentative bog it's not so Sambi frogs totally a thing you mentioned that it looks like a leaf or a rock yes very good um it does look like a rock so if you look I wish I could describe it like here's the mouse but it kind of just looks like this it's like hard to the touch because it's basically frozen um so yeah definitely look up that that is my fiance he's helping his interview definitely look that up it's super cool and it's crazy because there found a super North where it's really cold so maybe one day when I'm like in Upper Alaska or like northern Canada I can find a wood frog that would be awesome but it does look like dirt you're right so might be hard chemically well have you ever wanted to be an earth have you always wanted to be an author great question I think I have always wanted to be an author in the same way I think a lot of people want to be you know movie stars or an astronaut it's like oh I would like to by never really took it seriously and the reason I didn't is me because I didn't think I could do it so it was like I would be cool if I did that but I didn't like take it seriously um but that changed when I moved to New York City and started writing so I actually do have a job it's not just writing all day have a job that is blogs and writing things from the internet so once I started doing that my focus changed and when somebody gave me the opportunity to write a book I realize it's like yeah I actually totally want to do this this is something super exciting and cool so I can't say this was like my dream but the only reason it wasn't my dream is because I don't think I could ever achieve it and now that I did do it though I'm realizing how incredible it is and it feels exactly I think it'll feel it's like cool seeing your name on a book it's weird you know like you've got a library or a bookstore it's creepy seeing your own face on something so I exactly it's so creepy and like cool not in a bad way like fun things like that I've gotten to meet so many interesting people like this interview is amazing and it had couple hundred other interviews and it's just an awesome feeling and I think now I written one book I had the confidence to write more so I loved it and really excited are you working on another book right now currently I am NOT but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try to write another one so the process of pitching and starting above just take some time that being said now I have so much time because we're indoors so I'm thinking of writing another one so not sure about it when or what it's gonna be about um but stay tuned maybe a couple years anyone over here thank you very much for joining the interview thank you so much for having me this is so wonderful I enjoyed all your questions that's the end of the video I hope you enjoyed it see you next time on a wireless antigen video go to go to go to notice [Music] you