Ryan Seacrest Teams Up With His Sister Meredith On Children’s Book Inspired By Their Georgia Childhoods

Ryan Seacrest and his sister Meredith Seacrest Leach teamed up on a recent children’s book inspired by their own childhoods in the Atlanta suburbs. 

Available now from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, The Make-Believers celebrates the strength and beauty of a child’s imagination and how it can change the whole world.

In the work he does in pediatric hospitals through the Ryan Seacrest Foundation, Ryan said is continually surprised to see the resilience of the adolescent patients’ imaginations. 

“I’ve always been so impressed with their creativity,” the media personality told Southern Living. “Despite everything, they are still dreamers. There are still things they want to accomplish and do.”

Meredith, whose 5-year-old daughter was just starting to engage in imaginative play when they were working on the book, said she was struck to witness her creativity and imagination starting to soar. She said writing a book that celebrates imagination felt right. 

“You don’t need a lot of toys,” Meredith, who serves as the executive director and COO for the Ryan Seacrest Foundation, mused. “Blankets can become capes and spatulas can become microphones… Sometimes boredom is a good thing. It makes you be creative. And we want to celebrate that.”

Simon & Schuster

Turning spatulas into microphones is something the Seacrest siblings are familiar with. 

“I would read The Atlanta Journal-Constitution out loud at a desk and my sister would videotape it. It looked very official at nine or 10 years old. I knew I wanted to do something in the world of broadcasting, I just couldn’t articulate it at the time,” the Wheel of Fortune host recalled. 

Decades later, he now recognizes those moments for what they were. 

“I didn’t understand what I was doing back then, about putting things out in the universe. In hindsight, I wonder what I would be today if I hadn’t pretended like that,” Ryan said. “It was a way to manifest reality in a passion that i loved.”

Today, childhood looks a lot different than when the Seacrests were playing pretend at their parents house in Dunwoody, Georgia. But they hope that The Make-Believers reminds parents and kids to rely more on imagination. 

“Things are different today,” Meredith said. “There are so many options, whether it’s electronic devices or video games. There’s something nice about the simplicity of make believe.”

The Make-Believers is currently available wherever you buy books.