A Note from Mr. Scott

The Crew is real. Their school is real. The wall really has an equation on it, and the equation really did get there because of a Tuesday I’ll write about another day. Mr. Steve is my twin brother. He built The Neighborhood, and he’s been quietly teaching kids — and grown-ups — to slow down for years now.

The first time anybody said K + G + R = f out loud, it was during a conversation between me and a parent at the school. She helped me name what The Crew was already living.

But the truth is — the formula was never ours. It was never mine. It wasn’t Mr. Steve’s.

It was always the kids’.

I didn’t create it. I just witnessed it. For over thirteen years. That’s what this whole series is — one teacher trying to tell the world what he was lucky enough to watch happen, one kid at a time.

We just got lucky enough to be paying attention.

Now — before you go.

This is the first book. There are more coming.

You’ve met The Crew. But The Neighborhood is full of kids. There’s Blake, who once showed me the answer to a question I’d been asking for years. There’s Colston and Evelyn — and I’m not going to tell you about them yet, because wait til you meet them. There’s Jenni, who taught me a lesson about not letting kids grow up too fast. There are twins. There are big sisters and little brothers. There are kids whose stories I’ve been carrying for years, waiting for the right moment to tell.

There will be laughs.

There will be tears. (Some of mine. Some of yours. The good kind.)

There will be moments where you put the book down for a second and just look at your kid for a minute longer than you would have.

There will be moments where time stands still.

I’ve been watching all of this happen, one afternoon at a time, for over a decade. Observing is most of what I do. And now — finally — I get to share what I’ve seen.

You — yes, you, the one reading this — are one of the first. That means something. The Ripple starts small. It starts with the people who know The Crew is real, who know The Neighborhood is real, who know that the kids in these pages are kids someone actually loved enough to write down.

If this book did something to you — if you felt anything, anywhere in it — would you tell somebody?

Just one person. Tell them about The Crew. Tell them about the formula. Tell them about the wall.

That’s how this works.

That’s how kindness always works, actually. One person tells two. Two tell two. Two more tell two.

So go practice.

And then go play.

I’ll see you in the next book.