Bound Lines and Book Spines

By: Kristi Cruise How One Bedside Book Reminded Me It’s Working...Even When I Can’t See It The other night, I was in a vulnerable place. I had just spent a good amount of time questioning everything—my work, my impact, my vision. I had sat in conversation with someone I deeply respect, someone who had supported my literacy programs, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe it hadn’t landed. Maybe her child hadn’t connected with The LiLi Key or my new genre-bending series as I had hoped. Maybe it was all just too much. Too ambitious, too imaginative, too… different. Like me... And then, as if the universe was listening, I got a text message. “Nat just found the pre-LiLi book by Kristi and is sleeping with it under her pillow. 😊 Do you have a LiLi book you can bring?” She is a little girl in Wisconsin. I’ve never met her. She’s the niece of my friend, and she discovered The PreLi Key,  one of my earliest books, without me there to guide her. No reading circle or li...

 📖 The LiLi Key and What It Means to Me By: Kristi Cruise Before I ever wrote The LiLi Key , I created two other special books that helped me see what was possible when stories meet purpose. One was a thank-you book for David Longo, the generous CEO of CBI (Carolina Business Interiors), who gifted my first nonprofit free warehouse and office space “in perpetuity.” I had met him after a Chamber nonprofit pitch competition in 2011, and his support lifted us out of my garage and into a space we never could have imagined. We quickly grew to gift over 20,000 donated books a month to children in need. (And it's even more today!) As I think back on it even now, 15 years after at act of monumental kindness, it was one of the kindest and most generous things anyone had ever done for me in my entire life. Not only did he empower a non-profit, but he also believed in me. I will never forget it, nor will I ever forget him. The world is a far better place because of David Longo.  Cruise...