The Austin-based organization, Dude. Be Nice, is releasing a children’s book of the same name to forward their mission of spreading kindness.
Their story follows a bear named Dude who comes up with a plan to do nice things for his friends, but after a series of mishaps, he learns that an important part of being kind is asking how someone wishes to be helped.
Authors Brent Camalich and Jamie Lynn Camalich spoke to the Standard about their hopes for the conversations the book will inspire. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: How did you guys come up with the idea for it?
Brent Camalich: Well, I’ll give you some background. Dude. Be Nice is a brand that was built a decade-plus ago. One of our claims to fame is a series called the Dude. Be Nice Project, where we celebrate amazing humans all over the country that are making a positive difference and surprise them.
We started this YouTube series, and a children’s book author named Sarah Scheerger found one of our videos, was moved by our videos and said,“hey, you know, it would be really cool to collaborate on a book inspired by this idea of inspiring people to treat themselves and others better.”
And so we were like, is this real? Is Sarah like a real person? And so, she met up with us not long after we connected over email and that’s when the process started. So, this process started probably like seven years ago, and it was a dream of both Jamie and I since we were kids to actually create our own children’s books, and Jamie’s actually a teacher currently.
And so, we started this process. Her agent believed in this idea of creating a series based on this idea, Dude. Be Nice. We’ve been working on it ever since, and it’s taken many years and rewrites and finding the best partners for illustration. That ended up being a woman named Alex MacNaughton out of England.
And here we are, the book is coming out.
Jamie Camalich: It’s finally here.
Wow, yeah, it sounds like a large, large process. Take us through that process a little bit. Give us a sense of what actually went into writing “Dude. Be Nice.”
Jamie Camalich: So, we connected with Sarah. She has a background in counseling through numerous school districts. And so like Brent mentioned, I have a background in education. I’ve been in education for 20 years and I’m currently in elementary education here in South Austin. So, the three of us had worked together and we’re just ideating, how can we take this messaging and package it for our young readers?
Sarah is so beautiful and eloquent and very polished with her youth writing, and so between Brent’s experience in doing assemblies and connecting with youth, and my background in education and Sarah’s expertise, we were able to craft a deadpan silly story for youth as almost like opening up the gates to have these conversations about what it really means to be kind.
What made it seem so real is when we finally had our illustrator. Brent, I don’t know if you want to pick up on that, on finding Alex and how long it took waiting for the perfect person.
Brent Camalich: Yeah, I think, you know, both of us are new to this process, writing a children’s book. And you think, “oh, it’s a children’s book, this must be easy.”
There were a lot of steps – from getting an agent to believe in it, to the agent then taking this out and Penguin Random House then believing in it, who’s a big producer or publisher of children’s books. And then them helping us find the perfect author to bring what ultimately became the characters Dude and Fizz and their counterparts to life.
They found someone named Alex McNaughton, who I mentioned out of England. This is her first children’s book, but we’ve become really close as a unit.
So, this is kind of a unique experience. I think a lot of children’s books, it’s like one author and everyone’s a little bit disconnected, but we truly have collectively put this thing together as a unit and, you know, it’s a fun book.
We’re not trying to bash people over the head with some message. It’s really simply just, we hope it opens up conversations about kindness and how to approach certain situations. Being helpful is great, but maybe sometimes being helpful is more about listening versus just jumping into things and trying to fix all the world’s problems.
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it does seem to me very unique in that approach. I’m not aware of many other children’s books that focus specifically on asking people how they want to be helped. What made you guys want to focus on that specifically?
Jamie Camalich: Yeah, Brent and I were having a conversation earlier. Like I mentioned, I’m currently in the classroom with third grade students, so I see this come to life every single day. I think we’re so used to packaging, you know, “being nice,” like do more, open the door, if a friend is having trouble with their classwork, see if they need help and jump right in.
But what I’m noticing is us being able to have this conversation of when we insert ourselves, our intention is so kind and so pure and so helpful, but sometimes that impact is a little messy, right? Sometimes that friend does not want to be helped or really wants to struggle and work through that.
There’s so many situations in the book where it’s so funny. Dude will go in and try to pick a piece of lint off of someone’s sweater, and then the sweater becomes completely unraveled by the end. So, just really taking the time to slow down and to flip what being kind and nice is almost on its head, and say sometimes we need a way, we need to ask how someone wants to be helped, if they want to be helped, and then that impact can sometimes be greater.
I’m curious, what kind of feedback did you guys get while writing the book? I mean, it’s a lot of time, a lot of energy, and a lot of effort to put into a project. Did your idea for the project turn out differently than what you set out to do originally?
Brent Camalich: Yeah, I think the original intention was a little more obvious, right? It’s just like all these ways to be kind, right.
But it became, a little bit to Jamie’s point, flipped on its head where we’ve got this star of the show, Dude, who’s well-intentioned but some of his intentions goes awry when he tries to go overboard and be extra, extra nice. He crosses some boundaries that literally unravel his mission to be kind.
So, rather than it just be a laundry list of like, all right, here are the things you can do to be a better human, it’s just a fun way of looking at interacting with others differently.
But being well-intentioned is not a bad thing. That’s a great thing, but there’s more to how we connect with other people than just trying to solve all their problems every single day.
Jamie Camalich: And I think with our audience being young children, naturally and developmentally, they’re egocentric, right? And so, Dude, our main character is very egocentric.
And like we were saying, the intention is so sweet and so pure and so kind like our students, like our children, but it’s really teaching them how to take some different perspective.
What do you want parents and people to know about “Dude. Be Nice”?
Brent Camalich: You know, I think at a high level, this book was inspired by a brand that we started 10-plus years ago. And the idea was, we wanna inspire people to treat themselves and others better. I hope that when people read this book, they laugh, most importantly.
It’s an opportunity for parents, aunts, uncles, and older siblings to interact with their kids in a fun way, you know, at bedtime or wherever you wanna read this book. But I hope it opens up a conversation of, we want people just to explore kindness in a new way and whatever that means to them.
So, I don’t want to be too specific, but just enjoy it and see what kind of conversations come out of that.
Jamie Camalich: Yeah, and I think Brent, the way you ended that is so important. Brent and I, you know, we have children together, and I think some of the most beautiful moments come out of having conversations with your children.
So, this book is a wonderful way to start those conversations. So, we just really want this to be used as a point of connection and conversation.
If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it here. Your gift helps pay for everything you find on texasstandard.org and KUT.org. Thanks for donating today.