Bryant and King would sit on couches in …

Bryant and King would sit on couches in his office for hours at a time, just brainstorming ideas for the series. They came up with mantras and parables that they wanted to lay at the heart of the story for young readers to discover. As a father, Bryant wanted to focus on telling stories for children, like his own daughters. He wanted to teach them some of the lessons that weren’t accessible to him while he was growing up, King said. “Ninety-five percent of the time we were just sitting around throwing out meaning of life type questions, which were always on our minds,” King said.