Laurel Snyder: My name is Laurel Snyder, and I am the author of Endlessly Ever After: Pick Your Path to Countless Fairy Tale Endings!, which was illustrated by Dan Santat.

This is a book that brings together a couple of things that I loved as a kid myself when I was a young reader. I loved books that told fairytales of all different kinds. I was a big fan of fairytales. I loved books in verse. I loved books like Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, for instance, or Edward Leer, that rhymed poem. And I loved these books that allowed me to choose my own way through the story, and so that is what this book is. I have brought together a fairytale and verse, and this format that allows readers to decide what page they want to go to next.

So this was an interesting project, in that it grew and grew and grew. When I started, I really was just trying to give kids the sort of adventure of choosing their own path. So the book opens with a little girl, who might be Little Red Riding Hood, choosing whether she wants to put on her faux fur coat or her red cape and then, based on that, you sort of wander into the story, and you end up in different fairytales, depending on the choices that the reader makes, and that was all I was really starting out to do, I think, in the beginning, if I remember correctly, but what's interesting about choice is that there's all of this stuff that goes with it, right? Sometimes we have what feels like a really important choice to make, but the truth is that either choice would lead us to the same place. Sometimes we don't even realize we're making a choice. We think we're making a small choice by putting on a certain kind of coat, and based on the coat we're wearing, things happen to us that are surprising, and so the book actually became much meatier. It became much more about choice and how choice operates in our lives and how we are patient in moments where we feel like we don't have choice or how random sometimes the universe can feel.

And so I love this idea that developed, and a lot of this is Dan too, his artwork, but I love this thing that developed, this idea of this path, and that we all think we have control of ourselves. We think we're on this path where we make very, very smart decisions, and we end up exactly where we wanted to go, and sometimes that's not the way life works. So there is a sort of randomness to it, as well as a certain amount of control. It was really, really a fun book to watch unfold.

I think maybe just the last thing that I would say about this book is that it functions more as a collection of stories than as a single narrative, right? You start the story and your first adventure might only last three pages, and then you go back to the beginning and you start again. And so ideally the book teaches you how to read it, and you get to try out all of these different adventures and endings. So I would just say to kids that if you hit a bumpy start, or if you don't like what happens to you on your first try, go back to the beginning and start again, because there are lots of different adventures in the book.

So this is a book where you get to make choices, and I'm going to read you just the very first page, and you're going to get to see what your choices would be if you were reading the book:

Your mama shakes you out of bed. She says, "My darling dear, you need to run to Grandma's, quick! She's feeling ill, I fear. Now take this cake to cheer her up and have a lovely day. But mind the path! For danger tends to lurk upon the way."

So up you jump! You give a nod, and through the room you tear. But wait, you'll need to grab your coat. It's rather cool out there.

What next Rosie? Which coat will you wear? To slip on your coziest (faux) fur coat, turn to page 20. To grab your favorite red cape, turn to page six.

So if we chose 20 and we turn to page 20, we now have Rosie in her faux fur coat wandering down the path, and we get to this page.

Inside your coat as warm as toast, you skip through every glade. You'll soon be at your Grandma's house and sipping lemonade. But when you get to "down the path," you find you're somewhere new. A house you've never seen before. It's brick. The door, bright blue. You know your gran is waiting, she's sick and stuck in bed, but would it hurt to quickly knock on this fine door instead?

And so now you have to choose, you have to decide, do you want to knock on the door, or do you want to hurry on to grandma's house? It's up to you.