{"id":88508,"date":"2025-10-21T09:45:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T09:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/88508\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T09:45:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T09:45:09","slug":"the-day-leap-soared-is-the-childrens-book-we-all-need-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/88508\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Day Leap Soared’ Is the Children’s Book We All Need Right Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

Braverman\u2019s first picture book is inspired by her irrepressible pup Leap\u2014and the lessons of individuality and teamwork she carries on the trail<\/p>\n

\"the<\/p>\n

Left: ‘The Day Leap Soared’ cover; right: the author and the real Leap (Photo: Courtesy Harper Collins and Blair Braverman)<\/p>\n

Published October 21, 2025 03:19AM<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had the pleasure of editing Blair\u2019s column\u2014and much of her other work<\/a> for\u00a0Outside\u2014for many years. Over that time, we\u2019ve gotten to know each other well, and she\u2019s become a common name in my household. She sent cozy slippers to my son when he was born (we still have them and are waiting for my new baby to grow into them); my stepdaughter reads her books and articles religiously; I often describe Blair\u2019s wild wellness experiments<\/a> to my husband over dinner; and Blair and I text regularly about our adventures in motherhood.<\/p>\n

But one thing Blair might not know is that ten years ago, not too long after I started working for Outside, I read her first book,\u00a0Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube<\/a>.\u00a0It\u2019s a coming-of-age memoir about learning to survive and thrive in the harsh North, and it became one of my favorite books. At the time, I was going on mini climbing trips every weekend, sleeping out of my tent and eventually the back of my Tacoma, following adventure wherever I could. In that memoir, which focused heavily on dogsledding and remote environments, I saw in Blair a kindred spirit, someone who was also chasing her own thrills and discovering herself along the way.<\/p>\n

As I read an early version of her new children\u2019s book, The Day Leap Soared, to my three-year-old and six-month-old nearly a decade later, I imagined Blair reading the same words, pausing on the same pictures, with her two kids. I felt that old flash of recognition: here we were, Blair and I, once again traveling parallel paths through similar life stages.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the release of\u00a0The Day Leap Soared<\/a>,\u00a0which goes on sale on October 21, 2025, I interviewed Blair about what inspired her new book and what she hopes readers will take away from it.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Day Leap Soared\u2019
\n\"cover(Photo: Courtesy Harper Collins)<\/p>\n

OUTSIDE: You\u2019ve written books in the past, but this is your first children\u2019s book. You are also a mom now! Did motherhood inspire you to write The Day Leap Soared?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blair Braverman: I started working on The Day Leap Soared before I had kids, but the timing has been perfect, because it\u2019s coming out just as my one-year-old twins are starting to get excited about reading. They recognize the dogs in the book. When I read certain pages, they throw back their heads and howl ah-woo.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Your new book is inspired by your real-life sled dog Leap. Can you share more about her in real life and how she inspired this story?<\/p>\n

BB: Most of my sled dogs grew up with their littermates, but Leap was unique because I raised her as a single puppy. (She was born at a friend\u2019s kennel; we adopted her because her mom, Ebony, had been on my Iditarod team.)So instead of growing up with a pack of wild siblings, she was basically raised collectively by all the adult dogs on my team.<\/p>\n

As a pup, she was big-hearted, irreverent, slightly feral\u2014and desperate to join her friends on their runs in the woods, though she was too young to join in. She\u2019d wail every time we left without her. When she was finally old enough to run, it felt like the biggest deal ever; she was jumping so much that I could barely get the harness on. When I wanted to write a kids\u2019 book about a sled dog puppy, I chose Leap as the star because of her solo puppyhood. Like every kid, in their own way, she was starting a journey that she had to figure out on her own.<\/p>\n

\"aLeap as a puppy (Photo: Courtesy Blair Braverman)<\/p>\n

As a seasoned dogsledder<\/a>, how did your experiences influence the themes and details in the book?<\/p>\n

BB: I\u2019ve been a dogsledder for 19 years now, and one of the biggest lessons I\u2019ve learned is that no one trait makes a great sled dog. Athleticism, friendliness, courage, a good appetite\u2014these things are all important, yes. But it\u2019s the dogs\u2019 individual skills, their uniqueness, that make magic happen. My girl Jenga\u2019s a great sled dog because she\u2019s an intellectual and can think her way through a challenge. Colbert\u2019s fantastic because he eats everything, so he keeps his strength up. Willow loves breaking trail through storms. Refried sings, which helps with the team\u2019s morale. Teamwork is about combining our differences, not erasing them, and I wanted to tell a story that would help kids feel proud of the things that make them unique.<\/p>\n

\"dogsArtwork from \u2018The Day Leap Soared\u2019 (Illustration: Olivia When)<\/p>\n

Leap\u2019s journey is about finding her unique place on the team. How do you hope this story encourages children to embrace their own strengths and contributions?<\/p>\n

BB: I hope Leap\u2019s story helps them recognize that the things they\u2019re passionate about\u2014singing, drawing, climbing, building with Legos, anything that makes them excited\u2014are gifts to be proud of. Not just for them, but for their family and their community, too. And on a secondary note, I hope it gets them excited to pet dogs<\/a> and go outside in the woods!<\/p>\n

Can you tell us about any memorable moments or adventures with Leap IRL that didn\u2019t make it into the book?<\/p>\n

BB: Leap has an uncanny ability to find bones and carcasses anywhere and then parade them in front of her friends. I\u2019ve seen her excavate and haul around bear heads that are practically her size. That detail felt a little too gruesome to put in the book, but it\u2019s definitely a skill she cultivates.<\/p>\n

How did Leap get her name?<\/p>\n

BB: Her full name is Lambeau Leap, in honor of the Green Bay Packers. She has completely lived up to her name; it\u2019s uncanny. She almost never has all four paws on the ground!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Braverman\u2019s first picture book is inspired by her irrepressible pup Leap\u2014and the lessons of individuality and teamwork she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46,28999,60351,10819,60352,60353,10820,10825],"class_list":{"0":"post-88508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-parent_category-culture","12":"tag-tag-books","13":"tag-tag-commerce","14":"tag-tag-dogs","15":"tag-tag-dogsledding","16":"tag-tag-evergreen","17":"tag-type-article"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}