Inside The Endless Game

In this episode of Reading With Your Kids, we spend most of our time in the joyful, high‑energy world of JD Amato and Sophie Morse, the creative team behind the middle grade graphic novel The Endless Game. JD shares how the story grew out of his own childhood in the Chicago suburbs—moving around a lot, finally landing in one neighborhood where kids knocked on his door and pulled him into a world of street games, friendships, and long summer evenings. That sense of kid freedom and community became the heart of the book's epic, town‑wide game of capture the flag.

Sophie explains how the manuscript instantly clicked with her own memories of neighborhood play in Boston, especially capture the flag, and how that nostalgia drove her visual storytelling. She talks about the challenge of illustrating a nearly 250‑page full‑color graphic novel over four and a half to five years, keeping the art consistent and dynamic, and collaborating closely not only with JD but also with colorist Sarah Calhoun. Together, JD and Sophie describe a highly collaborative process—unusual in traditional publishing—where they constantly bounced ideas, problem‑solved scenes, and supported each other through creative highs and lows.

We also meet Jacquelyn Boylan, whose picture book A Broken Twig Can Sprout draws on her own profound losses in childhood to comfort kids facing trauma and adverse experiences. Finally, Christine Ricci McNamee returns to the show with Logan and the Disappearing Document, the latest in her Logan series, sending a magic‑bone‑powered pup on a patriotic, cross‑country mystery adventure.