Acclaimed actress, screenwriter, and director Lake Bell joins Zibby to discuss her debut picture book, ALL ABOUT BRAINS, a joyfully whimsical exploration of all the ways people and their brains are different. Inspired by her own children, Nova and Ozzy, and their experiences with neurodivergence (including epilepsy, ADHD, and dyslexia), Lake shares the emotional journey that led her to write this empowering book. She and Zibby connect over shared parenting challenges and the importance of reframing diagnoses as superpowers. Lake also dives into her own struggles with dyslexia and how it shaped her creative process as a filmmaker and writer.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome Lake. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked with Zibby to talk about All About Brains, a book about people. Congrats. 

Lake: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I love the rainbow behind your head. I like that.

Zibby: Oh, thank you. 

Lake: Loving this. Yeah, the other night was the first night that marked my seeing act, the physical element. I have all the kind of proofs and everything, so it was quite special to open it up and I haven't shown it to my children yet, 

Zibby: oh my gosh. 

Lake: Yeah, the actual, hardcover, but. 

Zibby: So I got to show my kids before you showed, your kids did.

Lake: Yes, you did. 

Zibby: It seems wrong. That seems like it shouldn't happen that way. 

Lake: It happens a lot though. We have a two home household with my kids, so they were daddy's house and so when they come to my house, but we have a very like extraordinarily loving co-parenting, unusual synergy in between our two homes, as it were.

But anyway, so yes, this book is wholly inspired by the little children we're talking about right now, which are my daughter Nova and my son Ozzy. I include him in that, even though this is a book about neurodivergence and neurodiversity. And yet. Nova, my daughter has epilepsy and Ozzy has had to live with a sister with epilepsy. So equally there is a unique experience in their childhood. 

Zibby: A hundred percent. 

Lake: Yeah. 

Zibby: I have to say, I read this to my son who's 10 last night, and he, whenever there was a. A word I can't even remember which one, where I would say it out loud. And I'm thinking to myself, I wonder if he knows what that is.

He would say what is such and such? And then you would say, what is such and such in the book? And it was like perfect. Like you read his mind. And then after we kept going through page by page, because you have it that there's a group of kids sitting in a circle and the teacher is facilitating this conversation.

Everybody shares what's special and they all have something neurodiversity related to share. So as I went one person to the next, finally my son was like. What are the odds that everyone would have something at the show and tell day. 

Lake: Exactly what the odds are? Pretty high. 

Zibby: And I was like I dunno, maybe it's a special school, just go with it.

It's fine. 

Lake: What's interesting about that is that I rem you know he's making a good observation, which is, of course it, for your listeners the book does involve a group of children sharing on share day when you think, sure, you can share your dinosaur, that farts, or you could also share something that's experiential, which is, oh I have a thing.

I have a unique experience of how I walk through life and how I see the world. And that can be a share as well. And obviously, as. I have a household with a daughter, with a unique brain, and then my son is dabbling with dyslexia, as it were. And I personally have dyslexia and felt it in school and at these ages so much because this is where you are crafting your ability to express yourself and to ingest information.

And so it is pivotal to have a pediatric neurodivergence, that that is sometimes hindering and then sometimes really bolstering your ability to do certain things. And so I, I see that in Nova. Certainly and I in myself too, because I was dyslexic and I grew up in a really rigorous all girls school that academics were that pridefully difficult. 

Zibby: Yep. 

Lake: And of course I, it was a time where, if you were dyslexic, you're in, I was literally in something called like the slow class or something like that, like the slow readers. 

Zibby: Like we, I can't believe that was the way it was back then.

I, it wasn't that long ago. 

Lake: No, I, and I was like. But I remember it so well. I felt so dumb. Honestly. I did. And I've grown up to become a writer, which is, when I write screenplays or I write, articles or, now books, it's interesting that it really forced me to I move slower in, in how I read, but it means I picture everything. So as a filmmaker, when I'm reading something and I'm writing something, I'm writing it with pictures all over, like just robust, multidimensional, and so that's just how it shows up for me because I have to move a little slower because for instance of just in thinking about spelling and how things are crafted and things like that. So anyway, Nova actually, fun fact, and she will share this. She has a cocktail of three of the things that, yeah, you could tell your son. There were, she actually has three things from here. She has a DHD, epilepsy and dyslexia.

So she's got a little shaker. In her mind. 

Zibby: We have these scattered, we have a, some cocktails. There are some cocktails. I have four kids, I have some, I have four kids there. There's no one gets out. Unscathed is basically saying, and yeah. 

Lake: Yeah. But it's true that if you're sitting in a group of children in our age and in our ability to decipher and decode and understand the brain better, that yeah, there is a likelihood there is some shade of anxiety or some kind of diversity from a neurological perspective. And it's like I look at it because I look around at my friends and I, and when we sit at a round table ourselves as grownups, we all have a sprinkle of something as well. 

Zibby: A hundred percent. Yes. Actually, my son reading this was like, wait, doesn't everyone have anxiety?

And I was like. Basically, yeah. No. 

Lake: And Nova also suffers from anxiety too. 

Zibby: But the point is, you know what there, there is so much comorbidity in all of these, right? Because when you're going through the world and with essentially, your hands tied behind your back, right?

You're at a disadvantage in some ways. It can be anxiety provoking and then you end up with that sensor part of your brain being more developed and.. 

Lake: Yeah. And I think that my, my real goal with this was, I remember when Nova was, you didn't have to have a formal diagnosis, but certainly because when you have a seizure disorder, you're like, you're having seizures and so there's your diagnosis right?

In their house. Because epilepsy is just, as we as many know, is just a fancy word for saying you get seizures. In some way, shape, or form. And you suffer from a condition where your brain misfires and causes these electrical charges that cause a multitude of different types of seizure activity, convulsions.

Sometimes they can be absent. They look like you're checked out for a beat where your eyes just stop and stare and then come back. So what really admired in Nova's journey is going from a place where seizures are a big, bad, scary thing that are anxiety causing and helping.

I remember Scott and I, my ex and I, when she first fell from her big first seizure. First she had febrile seizures and just for people to know this. So those are fever seizures and those are pretty common. It's, they're not as extraordinary. People, kids who have a spike in fever, it's so scary.

And they have a grand mal seizure and they fall over and oh my god, but they grow out of that at six, usually, and so we were waiting because Nova was someone who got fever, seizures, and boy were they just horrific and so scared. 

Zibby: What how did you feel seeing your daughter have a seizure?

Lake: So I can't explain, only you know, I have friends who have, I, there's a community in the epileptic in parents who have children with epilepsy and whatnot. But thank you for asking that question. It's so traumatizing. I can't even tell you. It you feel utterly out of control. I've learned so much about seizures though.

And the one thing I can say, is that once you understand that the seizure itself is not the monster that is hurting your child, that it's just an occurrence that is happening that's not hurting her or him. That it just needs to get through that wave. And then the other side of the wave, they're just gonna need to be tired.

But the actual seizure itself is not the knife. So once you realize that you're your anxiety as a parent can settle because you understand that there's a timestamp that it's going to happen and then it ends. 

But there are constant little pockets of ambiguity, right?

So if it does, if this is the one seizure that's gonna go from over two minutes. Then you have to administer a drug that's like a Valium, that's an emergency thing that we have in the house that you have to put through the rear. It's like a suppository type thing to get it to stop, because if it goes up to form, like we never had that knock wood, but that's when you're like for the brain, that's too much activity. You need to stop it in its tracks. But with smaller seizures, you don't need to. It's not a problem. 

Zibby: It's not like you're turning on the timer on your iPhone. 

Lake: Correct. 

Zibby: Is it? Do you do that now? 

Lake: No, now she's currently in, let's all, knock wood, she's currently seizure free, so she, for the past two years, and this is the other thing about brains, all about brains, is that they are wonderfully unpredictable, like it's like your brain, my brain and Nova's brain who has activity. We could have a picture, we could do an MRI and things could look. The MRI could look pretty similar, but egs will look different, so it's interesting, and I speak about this in the book a little bit, that like brains themselves, it's not Nova's brain is like blue, sparkly.

It's really, they all can, even in an MRI picture look similar or so different, and yet you and I we speak and relate and into and intellectualize the same way. So when she would fall into seizure, I think the only place where it really changed for me as a parent was when she started having seizures where, by the way, just little fun fact. So you've got grand Mals, which are the big fancy, big kahunas where they fall over, they become unconscious and convulse. They're, they can't you, your main job there is just to make sure where they fell, like you'd wanna make sure that their head didn't hit anything.

But there's no, just to distill, you don't have to put like a wallet in someone's mouth. That's not a thing, the tongue and all that. It's more about getting them on their side and making sure that their air passage is straight. You're just like, just breathe through it. Let them get through it physically and get them on their side. 

So there was one moment where Nova, I asked Nova, can you hear me when you go under in the station? Can you hear Mommy? When, because I started in the beginning I'd be like, come on. And that was initially. And then once she said to me, she goes, yeah, I can hear you sometimes I can hear you. And I was like, oh, okay. Hey. And so then, thank God I'm an actor. So the next time, I remember there's one time she was in my closet when I had my new way of how I was gonna take on this on, and she was looking at something and then she came to me with her eyes like, it's happened.

It's coming. The wave is coming. And I was like, okay. And I took her and I held her on her side as she seized. And I was, Colin's a clever, I was like, you are having sparkles in your brain right now. You're doing great. It's almost done. Yeah. You're doing great honey. We're almost there. And I held her.

And by the way, it was really good for me too. Good lesson for all of us. And it kept my limbic system, so. 

Zibby: Yeah, you just calmed me down. Thank you for that. I'm just gonna replay this. Yeah. Seed whenever I need to. 

Lake: I hear exactly where you're supposed to be. Yeah, I've got you. And then she came out of it and I had trust in the process and she had trust in the pro and it was so much better.

So she taught me that by saying I can hear you. 

Zibby: Wow. 

Lake: Really and truly Nova in her when Scott so when Scott and I started this whole process with her, she was so little, she was one and a half when she had her first seizure, febrile seizure. And we did. Scott was with her for that one and he thought she was passing, like it was just horrible.

You don't where it's coming from and she's turning blue and you're not able to understand it and it's, you are like, this is it. And then as we understood it more, we some, the mom kept yelling for the ambulance every time a Grand Mall would come. But then we started to learn more and then, then when we were trying to get rid of them, we had to get Nova on like big girl medications.

And that's hard for a family. And you know where you go, gosh, here's a family that's is that cabbage organic? And then all of a sudden, here's a huge pharmaceutical anti-seizure drug that I'm going to give my five year, 6-year-old, and. We worked with CBD, which actually did manage medical grade.

CBD actually did have extraordinary management in the grand mal seizures, but kept the, but we couldn't get rid of the myoclonic seizures. Fancy word for kind of stutter seizures that are more. They would, if I'm talking to you, you right now, like that and it would show up in that kind of, you're trying to express yourself, right?

So it kept hitting and also a huge proponent in her anxiety. 

When you're trying to express yourself as a 6-year-old, and you knew that if you cluster, if you get a cluster of a lot of little ones, then a big kahuna is coming. So then that adds to the anxiety, right? When we first were talking to Nova about it, she would have a seizure and say at, there was a certain point in her little like epileptic career where she'd say, I'm sorry, after she had a seizure.

Oh, no. No. 'cause I think the general consensus was like, we're fighting these seizure, we're gonna figure it out. We'll get rid of them. And we didn't know any better at that time. Just, we just were, oh, how do we get rid of them? Maybe try this medicine, try that medicine, right? And when they wouldn't go, she was like, sorry.

And that really caused us to reframe. I was like, we need to have a family meeting. Scott and I came together and we were like, okay. Did some research and it was. Thought that Joan of Arc had epilepsy among other people too, like Edgar Allen Poe, but we don't need to talk about him. And also I think Napoleon, but he was really difficult.

So the point is a lot of major leaders and warriors had it. And so I said, what if I'm gonna sit her down and I'm gonna say no. Here's the deal. Your brain is so unique that it has. It works so hard and has such sparkly magic that it causes these seizures and you're not alone. I'll tell you who else.

And then I started talking about Jonah Ark and all these amazing writers and thinkers and leaders, and I was like, so seizure. Let me know, like when you feel one of those stutters or whatever. 'cause it just means you're a little smarter today, and I was like, who? So then it turned into this thing of she would have one and she'd go, mom.

'cause she, we'd have to log them. She'd like, mom, I just had a seizure. I just had a stutter one. And we called them a mini. I had a mini. And I look at you all cylinders today. You're a little bit got some sparkle in your step. Do you know what I mean? She was like, it started spill. Aw. And so then I heard her talking to her friends in a shared day.

And it was during Covid, so they were all on Zoom and everyone was sharing things and because the Epilepsy Foundation has these little badges that you get for advocacy and for, teaching about, other kids about seizures and things like that. She wanted to get one of those.

And so at Share Day she said yes, I have a share, and lo behold, she said, I have epilepsy and everyone, all the other kids, what's that? She said I have, it means I get seizures and what's a seizure? And the kids this in this incredible peer-to-peer conversation happened and thank God the teacher let it occur where Nova described.

She had these electrical charges in her brain that misfired and caused convulsions and it's, she's it's just like sparkly magic and everyone has a brain that has unique qualities, but that hers does this thing. And she talked about Jonah Bark and she talked about how, she just had some ownership over it.

And it was the first time where I just of course I was crying in the sidelines. And then, she got her badge and she felt definitely empowered and her friends were really understanding, asked good questions and totally unafraid. And I think that there is stigma even today on neurodiversity and different types of conditions that the brain can imbue.

And I was very proud of her in that moment. I was proud of the children who were listening. I, and then, it was this kind of share of, one of her friends has dyslexia and it, I remember the parent being like we don't like to talk about it too much. We don't want her to think that she had, but the truth is like Novas went to a school where everyone was neurodiverse and had.

Dyslexia, H adhd, and all of them together, and dysgraphia and dyscalculia, and I asked that school actually, I was like, how do you handle that in terms of, there's a fear, I think, as parents to make your kids feel like they're. You are telling them they have they, they have a disability of some sort.

You're telling them that they have a disadvantage rather, and and will that hinder them? And their philosophy was just the opposite. It's no, it's just everybody has the thing, every lot, lots of people have stuff, and that's okay. You just have to learn how to adapt so that you can do the things you wanna do in life.

And yeah, it's just a fancy word called, dyslexia is just. How cool that's for sci. The scientific positioning we have in our society is that we get to di define them and then help diagnose a little, but then also live with it. Like how do I adjust how I read in order to just read all the books I wanna read, but just I have to suck, it's it allows you to feel in control to have more understanding about who you are, and how your body works, and how your brain works. So I liked it. I felt better, hearing that certainly in her learning career. 

Zibby: It's essentially like your parenting strategy became something that she adopted and then it all became this book. So that's like an a plus on the mom day, you don't, we don't always get it right a hundred percent of the time, but like moments like that, now you have it documented. 

Lake: Totally. And I feel, I think the like Little Lake too wanted this book as a kid being dyslexic and also being just like feeling a little shame around that or something, being I have a lot of friends who are writers now, and I'm now a voracious reader, but I was really scared to read just books and I know that's a lot. You're all, you're think really, I felt intimidated about it because I was slower.

And I felt my mom is this extraordinary woman who is so smart and so inspiring on so many levels, and she really shows up. We talk every day and she is like an Olympic reader so she can, she, when I was growing up, she'd be, wor in peace in an afternoon, really just going through.

And I used to ask her, how do you do that? And sure, of course. I was like, my brain just does not work like your brain. She's able to like just fly through and I just was very aware of it very young, and now with my children, especially because my son has his mom's dyslexia and my daughter has it as well, she's now reading so well and so fast, and so enjoying it.

But yeah I try to read with them, but also just around them, like I'm just like, I'm reading a book like, you welcome to bring a book in. I was like, I need my reading time. So that they can just see it. 

Zibby: I agree. I think that's the most important thing. People are always like, how do I get my kids to read more?

And it's do you read Exactly. How do they eat healthy food? What do it's the same thing. Like we have to model in part the things that we really want.

Lake: And then it gives, 'cause I was seeing, like reading all about you and I was like, then it gives them an opportunity.

It gives you an opportunity as parents to just read a book. 

Zibby: Oh yeah. I know. I'm so lucky. 

Lake: I'm like, I'm reading this book and then sometimes I'll be like, reading my book and I'll be like, okay, this is crazy. I cannot believe this woman is doing this. 'cause 'cause sometimes when you're reading a book you need to talk to someone.

So then I'm like, oh my God. So in this chapter I'm so frustrated with her, she's making such bad decisions. What is she doing? I'm like first of all. She was dating this guy. 

Zibby: I am the same. Exactly. 

Lake: Really? 

Zibby: And I love it. Oh my gosh. I was reading broken Country, which just came out. Which is so good. Anyway, there's like a trial scene and the verdict was coming and I was like, my heart was pounding and I couldn't, so I literally gave it to my son, who's like my one huge reader, and I was like, you have to read it. What's the verdict? I can't look. And then he read it out loud and I was like, no,

Lake: I love that so much. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Lake: What's your favorite, are Yeah, just side far. What are your, what are you reading? Fiction right now that you really love that. 

Zibby: That's one I just finished that I loved Broken Country by Claire Leslie Hall and also Wild, Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaughey. I just finished.

They're both there. There's a, there's some sort of mystery to it, like you're trying to figure something out all along. 

Lake: Would you mind saying second one again please? 

Zibby: Sure. Wild, dark Shore. Wild and that has like an environmental component. It's not something I'd normally, oh, it's an abandoned island in the middle of nowhere with an environmental spin.

And it's slow start. But man, I was like flipping those pages. 

Lake: Did you read Bright Objects? 

Zibby: No I did not. 

Lake: That Ruby Todd, that I thought that was wild. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Lake: And that I, just like female fiction. And then I did Long Island compromise. Did you read? 

Zibby: Oh, I love that. 

Lake: I love that. Really? 

Zibby: That was great.

Yeah. Dark, very dark, but yes. 

Lake: Yeah, I know. But fun. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Lake: Okay, cool. So I will thank you for the sidebar. 

Zibby: Thank you for the sidebar. That was great. 

Lake: Yeah. This is really interesting. I'm so excited to take this book too, to I'm interested to see. How it plays in schools and stuff, 'cause I think, yeah. 

Zibby: It's gonna be great. Like I'm gonna give this to all the kids' schools. 

Lake: Yeah. 

Zibby: Like they, everybody should know. And when you learn it early, then you're just like, oh yeah, okay. So then when you see it in seventh grade, it's not that big a deal as opposed to 

Lake: Absolutely. 

Zibby: The lack of knowledge.

Lake: I also feel like in making the book, I wanted to make sure that it felt. It wasn't like some buns are different, it's I wanted to be like, no, there's these kids and they're really kids and they really have the real word is, autism, the real word is dyslexia or whatever, ADHD, let's talk about it.

And let's con, let's acknowledge that there's a lot of super high functioning and magical people who imbue the same diversities 

Zibby: And ps this isn't only good for kids. There are a lot of grownups who can use this stuff. I know. And I can think of a few. 

Lake: Yeah, that's why it's a good, I guess read it to your kid kind of thing, and yeah, I do have just. I'm excited about it and I feel like Nova, who's gonna come with me to some of the press hits on, will be able to be proud to, to speak her truth and stuff. 

Zibby: Aw, what, you should do a story time at my bookstore. Aren't you in LA or I'm coming to New York. You're in New York, right?

I'm in New York now, but my bookstore's in LA. 

Lake: Oh, yes to that.

Zibby: Santa Monica. Okay. 

Lake: Oh yeah, I would love that. And we. And Nova can join, but I will also be in New York, just FYI. 

Zibby: Oh, okay. 

Lake: I'm shooting A an HBO series there for three, ooh. 

Zibby: Oh, amazing. 

Lake: Yeah. So if there's any like fun bookie, 

Zibby: oh yeah, let's do something in New York.

Yeah, that'd be great. 

Lake: Thank you ..So much. 

Zibby: Okay, thank you. 

Lake: Anything else I should say for that? 

Zibby: No, this was amazing. Okay. The book is amazing and I'll All About Brains, a book about people. Really awesome. Congratulations. 

Lake: Thank you. 

Zibby: Loved it. 

Lake: I part your book club. 

Zibby: Oh. We've part my club. 

Lake: Nice to meet you.

Zibby: So nice to meet you. Okay. Alright. Take care. Bye.