Love…and listen…to your teddy bear

 Teddy bear logic: Think positively and choose to be happy. This is good advice for young children, senior citizens and everyone in-between.

Fully grown author Margaret Meps Schulte talks to her teddy bear, Frank Lloyd Bear (affectionately known as Frankie). He listens…then coaches her. They have frequent conversations. The result is a delightful and uplifting yarn, “The Joyful Bear.”

Readers of all ages can “learn, grow and become” from this book. A quick read…and dagnabbit funny.

Schulte is no stranger to the Crystal Coast section of North Carolina. She visited her friends here in late February 2018 and spent some quality time with Libby Liles, owner of The Kindred Spirit Gift Shop and Green Gables Tea Room in Down East Carteret County.

“Don’t you just love this shop? It’s so warm and welcoming,” Schulte said. “It’s one of my all-time favorite happy spots, where one can enjoy a cup of tea, a scone and conversation.”

Schulte and Liles stoked up a personal kindred spirit relationship in 2010, and they have remained in constant contact since.

“Libby is so funny, she’s like my big sister,” Schulte said. Liles had a chapter of her own in Schulte’s earlier book, “Strangers Have the Best Candy.”

Frankie actually helped Schulte finish the candy book, coming to the rescue when the author fell into “a deep, unshakable depression, much worse than garden-variety writer’s block.” Frankie encouraged her to set that manuscript aside and start fresh with a different book, about how to talk to bears. She heeded his advice.

Teddy bears specialize in hugging, and Schulte shares some of the health benefits associated with the hugging experience. Bears can also help simplify one’s life and shed the complexities that are barriers to happiness.

Simplicity describes Schulte’s pen and ink illustrations that bring the main characters alive. Her drawings have an abstract flair, which enables her to give them a three-dimensional perspective.

Throughout her story, Schulte reveals a few secrets about teddy bear life. For example, bears maintain their strength by eating air. Coffee air is a favorite, second only to cookie air.

One day, Schulte wrote, “I began to recognize that Frank Lloyd Bear was me. I had given him the best parts of me, to hold until I was ready. He held my wisdom, my unconditional love, my vulnerability, my joy and contentment. He knew who I really was inside: A happy, loving little girl.”

“That little girl has often been afraid to come out and play, which is why Frankie is so alive. Frankie lives, acts and speaks for her. With that realization, Frank Lloyd Bear and I became equals. He no longer carries the wisdom and vulnerability for both of us. Now we share it along with the joy.”

Schulte continued: “I can see he’s just a stuffed bear, and he can see I’m just a squishy human. Both of us are perfectly imperfect.”

Schulte lives in Dunedin, Fla., to be near her 92-year-old father, Henry Schulte, who is also a writer. Her most recent project is known as “I Smile First.” Learn about it and follow her at her website 1meps.com.