That's hard work.

Yeah.

There's a, there's a passage in Mark 4, um, the Message version has an interesting take on it that has really inspired us over the years.

And it's, uh, after Jesus tells some of these stories, his disciples pull him aside and are like, "Why do you keep telling these stories that nobody understands?" Of course, I'm paraphrasing that, too.

He says, uh, "To some, the Kingdom of God comes in parables and stories, nudging them towards receptive insight." And I love that, because you know, sometimes if somebody's coming at you with information and you're like, "Oh, no, I, I, I already know that," you kind of close the doors.

But if you open with, "Hey, once upon a time...," you know, you kind of lean in, and that's really what we're hoping.

You know, I had, I, I've told this story about my son a few times.

At its core, it's a story about courage.

Yep.

Again, 15 years ago, so much difficult, more difficult now.

Um, between the, uh, immersive worlds of online pornography and, uh, online video gamings that are just capturing, you know, a generation of young men, and they're untested in the world.

And so the big question of, "Do I have what it takes?" that everybody asks, you know, we all ask this, um, they don't have, they don't get to test that question.

And so they are like, their whole development is arrested.

And so it's like this is why we have to tell this story about a dragon slayer kid.

How, how does your tale echo the Biblical pattern that we've seen with, like, David versus Goliath, or Daniel in the lions' den, or Esther risking everything? Because I feel like these themes are all in the book.

Yeah, I mean, for us, again, it goes back to identity.

[laughs]

And I just, I just s- watched the moment, like, in wonder, like, oh my gosh.

All these little...

I've been telling him little dragon sl- slayer stories where he's the hero, and that was such a lightning, or a light bulb moment for me to see, like, oh, none of those offenses or the jokes or none of that stuck to him.

It just fell right off because he was so confident in his identity.

And that became...

Really, that was a big, a watershed moment for me.

And Eric, what did you learn through the process of writing this book?

Mm-hmm.

And they can adventure on their own, learn skills on their own.

And we thought, "Man, uh, this would be a fun place to start a story." So we imagined this 12-year-old boy, you know, and we had kind of this lightning bolt brainstorm session.

A 12-year-old boy, um, this should take place in West Virginia.

We just could imagine a dragon in a coal mine.

And then we thought how, who would be the fellow, who would be the, the rest of the crew that helps take this dragon down? And we thought, oh, it's a scouting patrol and his best friends.

So it just kind of, like, naturally emerged, and it's the kind of story that we happen to love.

Mm-hmm.

You could throw them in any situation and a scout can probably outperform me when it comes to survival, but they're just so broad in what they can do.

Yeah.

And it's the rare place in society now.

I mean, we talk about, you know, get out and touch grass.

It's the rare place where kids have a little bit of autonomy and they can adventure on their own, learn skills on their own.

And we thought, man, this would be a fun place to start a story.

So we imagined this 12-year-old boy, you know, and we had kind of this lightning bolt brainstorm session.

But what are they up against in schools?