THE LITTLE BOOK.

My mom wrote a big book for grown-ups. It's about six sentences that make moms feel small, like "I'm just a mom," and why every one of them is wrong. She said she had to spend twenty years un-learning those sentences. So we made this one, so I don't have to. And so you don't have to either.

This book goes one week at a time. Don't read it all at once. It won't work that way.

Every week, you do the same five things. Read the part. Say the thing out loud to the mirror. Do it with your family, on tape, on a grown-up's phone, in a private album called Practice. Then do it for real, out in the world. Then write it in the box and get your three stars.

The tapes are yours. They stay on your grown-up's phone. Nobody sees them unless you say so, and your grown-up says so. That's the safe place. You practice there first, so when you do it for real, you've already done it once.

Every few weeks there's a check-in. You write, and your grown-up writes. Both of you. That's the deal.

Then come back next week and I'll tell you how mine went.

I'm Harper. I'm nine. I'm the oldest of four, which means I'm the one who knows where everything is. Millie's shoe is under the couch. The dog's leash is on the hook behind the door. Bowden laughs if you make the face.

I'm in a show this year. I'm good at remembering lines. I'm good at getting everybody to agree on a game when they want four different games. My mom says those are skills. I didn't know that until she said it.

My mom is Megan. She runs our whole house and she's building a business, both at the same time, and people still call her "just a mom." That's why she wrote her book. This one is mine. I wrote it with her, one week at a time, and I did every single thing in it before you did. Some of them twice.

So when I say "I did it," I did it. Your turn.