Kelly Lyons: Hi, my name is Kelly Starling Lyons and I'm the author of Going Down Home With Daddy, illustrated by Daniel Minter and published by Peachtree.

Going Down Home With Daddy was inspired by a couple of things. First when I was younger, my grandmother is a native of Pittsburgh, like I am, and her parents had lands in, at that time, a rural part called Gibsonia PA. during my lifetime, it wasn't a place where we could gather and go. It had been sold by then, but my grandparents would take me back to that land and talk about all these memories and almost make those gatherings come to life on the bare land that I saw.

I could picture people hugging and eating and dancing and talking. So just kind of this memory that I held in my heart for a lot of years, and then my husband, we went to his family land in Colquitt, Georgia. They owned thousands of acres at one point and it's this beautiful place that has a smokehouse and has a fishing pond and it has pecan trees and has a house that was built by his grandfather.

It kind of almost brought to life the image that I had as a child of what my grandma was talking about. But this was in real time. And I got to see the way that my kids took it in and how they were fascinated by the land and by the stories and by the history of the place and the coming together of family and the love and the joy. And so that was really an inspired by those two things, a childhood memory with my grandmother. And then as an adult, going to the family land of my husband with our kids.

I focused on both. The story is a celebration of family reunions, coming together, to a place that has deep meaning to your family and to your history. And so for me, I really wanted to have the place, the setting almost be like another character. It's such a unique place, and I think a lot of times when we're thinking about African American children's books, we don't often get to see those that are in more country and rural settings. So I wanted to really take time to talk about all of the sights and the sounds of the area.

But part of that, the coming together as a reunion, definitely is the feelings. People that you haven't seen since last year all come together and having fun. The passing on of history and memories that make people laugh or them tear up, and then thinking about what this moment means to you, that you'll carry with you into the future. And that was really how the plot of the story came to be.

The book is about ... it's the anniversary of owning the land as well as their annual family reunion. And the kids all have an idea of what they want to share. Little Alan, the main character, he doesn't have to share, but he really wants to and he's really struggling with how does he share what this moment and this land and these people mean to him? And it's not til later in the story that he finds just the right way to express how this is a special part of his heart, and his family that will stay with him forever. So it really was a blend of place and of people in that story.