(Or, Why I Used to Cry in the Children’s Section of the Bookstore)
Before my animation career, I worked in bookstores—first as a researcher, then a lead, and eventually, a children’s book expert.
Technically, I sold so many children’s and teen books they stopped rotating my shifts. Even when it was slow, I was asked to stay in the section because I was worth more there than anywhere else in the store—just me, a shelf of plush animals, and a department stocked with feelings disguised as books.
So I started reading. Everything.
Bestsellers. Award-winners. Quiet little titles no one remembered.
I made it my mission: understand what makes a story land—what makes it worthwhile. What lingers, long after the cover is closed?
One day I picked up Stone Fox.
I think I even scoffed at how simple it looked. It wasn’t lyrical. Not flashy. No one had asked for it, but it was one of the titles always kept on the shelf.
I picked it up out of obligation—just another book to cross off my list.
And its ending hit me like a punch I didn’t see coming.
It’s a short book. A boy enters a dogsled race to save his grandfather’s farm.
His best friend is his dog. They’re fighting for something bigger than themselves.
He’s winning—until his dog has a heart attack, just before the finish line.
And dies.
The boy freezes. The crowd goes silent.
Then the Native American racer, Stone Fox—who had been right behind him—
stops.
He draws a line in the snow.
And lets the boy carry his dog across the finish line.
Even now, I can’t tell that part without crying.
I was (and still am) wrecked.
Alone in the children’s department. Crying in the middle of a brightly lit bookstore.
I remember a parent eventually walking in and kindly asking what happened.
Later, I called my mom—a long-time early childhood coordinator—and said,
“How am I supposed to recommend this book? I can’t send a child home crying. That would be awful.”
And she told me something I’ll never forget:
“That’s exactly why you have to recommend it.
Children need to feel. They need to learn empathy.
And sometimes a book is the only way to reach them—and their parents too.”
I remember taking a breath and swallowing that responsibility.
That was the moment I understood what empathy really is.
It’s not just feeling sorry for someone.
It’s not just reacting to sadness.
As Brené Brown says, it’s feeling with people.
Empathy is choosing to climb down into the hole with someone instead of yelling advice from the top.
It’s sitting in discomfort. Bearing witness.
Letting someone know they’re not alone.
And that’s exactly what stories are capable of.
Empathy is what makes a story linger
A clever plot grabs your attention,
but empathy is what stays in your bones.
It’s why we cry at the end of Charlotte’s Web.
Why we cheer for the outsider.
Why we remember characters who didn’t look like us, but felt like us.
Children don’t just read stories—they live in them.
Stories let them test-run emotions.
Try on someone else’s world.
Learn to care about lives that don’t look like their own.
Empathy doesn’t require flawless writing.
It requires emotional truth.
We remember how stories made us feel—not just what they said
I don’t remember every line of Stone Fox.
But I remember the silence.
The heartbreak.
The dignity.
The grief.
The kindness.
We don’t cling to perfect structure or clever twists.
We cling to the stories that made us feel something real.
That’s what lasts.
That’s what has the power to change people.
Empathy teaches without preaching
Whether I’m working in animation, storytelling, or worldbuilding,
I keep returning to that moment in the bookstore.
Because the best stories don’t moralize.
They don’t wrap things up in a tidy bow.
They invite us into someone else’s pain—
and ask us not to look away.
That invitation—especially for young audiences—is everything.
Empathy isn’t the opposite of play.
It’s the soul of it.
It’s what lets audiences laugh, cry, hesitate, regret, hope…
all within a world you’ve made.
That is sacred creative ground.
Because the best stories don’t just help us feel our own emotions more deeply—
they let us feel through someone else’s eyes.
They give us access to lives we’ve never lived,
fears we’ve never faced,
hopes we’ve never dared to name.
And for a moment,
we see the world differently.
That’s when we become more connected.
More curious.
More human.
So as you create—whether a game, an animated series, or something entirely your own—
consider asking:
Where does empathy live in this story?
What do I want the audience to carry away with them?
Whose perspective am I asking them to inhabit—and why does that matter?
Because that’s the moment they’ll remember.
That’s the part that stays.
And that’s where the connection happens.
If you’re curious about how emotional authenticity deepens stories, you might also enjoy Invisible Thread — a reflection on how emotional truth connects characters to audiences.
Christy Heyob | Building Worlds, Stories & Creative Teams 
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