Jamie Lee Curtis Reveals How Her Young Neighbor Inspired Her Latest Children’s Book, Just One Sleep (Exclusive)

Jamie Lee Curtis knows that waiting is not easy.

The beloved Oscar-winning actress and children’s book author, 64, tells PEOPLE that when it comes to her latest children’s book — Just another dream: All good things come to those who wait… and wait… and wait — she was inspired by her young neighbor.

“This book was born during COVID, the first Christmas, when I saw my neighbor Betty on the street. It was Christmas Eve. It was about four o’clock, I went to get the mail and Betty was there. I went, ‘Hey, Betty! Santa Claus is on his way!’ And she looked panicked, and she said, “No, Jamie, no. sleep once more thenSanta Claus.”

Curtis was impressed by Betty’s measured way of looking at the long-awaited vacation.

“I said, ‘Well yes, you’re right Betty. I’m so sorry, you’re absolutely right.’ Because she’s too young to understand time. And then I went inside and wrote a book.”

Of his process for writing children’s books, Curtis says, “These books come to me almost fully formed.”

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Jamie Lee Curtis and Neighbor Betty.

Courtesy of Jamie Lee Curtis

Jamie Lee Curtis congratulated her daughter Annie on her birthday: ‘I love her with everything I have’

“All these books come to me through children’s voices, one sentence, usually what they say,” she shares. “I don’t focus on anything. Books come to me almost fully formed. I hear them.”

WITH Just another dreamCurtis says, “I realized that in the modern world—not in my generation when I was raising my first children, but in the modern world—they’ve come up with this wonderful way of dividing time into something that a child can understand, which is going to sleep. And so their idea about the countdown gives some control over time. I thought that was remarkable and that’s why I wrote the book.”

The multi-hyphenate says she has always loved this method of finding stories to share with young readers.

“I wrote a book called Is there really a human race? which was born when my youngest daughter came home from school one day very excited. She was about 5 years old and looked at me when she got out of the shared car. She said, ‘Is there really a human race?'”

“And she was saying: ‘And you didn’t tell me I was in the race? That I had a number on my back?!’ I mean, it was so shocking and I felt so horrible that it kind of got into her,” says Curtis. “And that day I wrote a book, because I realized that young children are taught that life is nothing but a big competition. We are so obsessed with being number one, and very few people become number one. So I wrote a book about it.”

Jamie Lee Curtis.

Andrew Eccles

Curtis is mum to two children – Ruby, 27, and Annie, 37 – and recalls running into the fact that “time is tricky” with them over and over again as children.

“As moms we always say, ‘I’ll be there in a minute.’ But what does that mean? We’re using time in a way that they can understand. Obviously, my kids are grown and I’m far from when they were little, and yet, I have these memories of a time that’s awkward.”

Time management with one of her children involved lots of reminders and using an egg timer.

“One of my kids is a gamer, likes to play video games and is a screen learner. That’s how she did it, but I had to figure out how to control the time with her. And I used egg timers – I know I’m not the first, but he gave me a chance,” he says she, explaining how she would use a series of timers to cut down on screen time.

“Even though it was frustrating for them, they could understand because of the connection between what they were doing and the timer that was counting down. . . . It gives them an end point, a kind of soft landing.”

Cover of “Just One More Sleep” by Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Cornell.

Penguin Young Readers, Penguin Random House

In the book, Curtis teams up with illustrator Laura Cornell for another fun read, and Curtis laughs, “Our backgrounds are very different, even though we’re both California girls.”

“It makes for a great partnership. There’s always an emotional component that I bring and there’s always a humor component that she brings,” she says. “That’s my secret sauce. Laura brings humor, I bring pathos, and together we create books that parents love to read, and children love to be read to.

“If you can make parents laugh and cry, that’s a book they want to pick up and read with their kids again and again,” she adds.

At 65, Curtis says she’s “thrilled, surprised and proud” that “I can still hear a children’s book that I can relate to because that’s the whole point.”

“I think it’s hard to be human and the more we grow up and the more we learn about the real world, the harder it is to reconcile joy and happiness because there are so many hard truths out there. Being an adult means you balance both and I believe writing children’s books is a privilege.” she says.

“That’s a joy for me. The joy is that I can metabolize the reality of the hardships of the world. I really believe that we have to ensure and that we are required to have hope. Because without hope, then it’s just horrible. Don’t think the world is horrible either — I think the world is complicated.”

“They’re big ideas and really important and I just love that I’m imparting a little bit of, hopefully, some real feelings to young kids as they mature and start to understand the reality of the world. It’s a privilege.”

Jamie Lee Curtis.

Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty

Curtis also acknowledges returning to acting and directing after many months on strike as a privilege.

“A lot of creative work in all of our lives has been put on hold, and hopefully all that work will start again now. So I’m hoping to have a great creative year. I’ve had a year of receiving and promoting — a big, couple of years of promoting. Now I have to again create. I can inhabit the characters and participate in the creation of things. I hope this year is a very creative year.”

Just another dream: All good things come to those who wait… and wait… and wait it is available online and in bookstores on Tuesday, January 16.

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Source: HIS Education