Entering into a World of STEM Learning with Eunice and Sabrina Moyle

It’s back! Creator Spotlight is back after an unexpected hiatus, in the previous interview, provided our readers with a look into the Video Game and Animation Industry with Marlene Sharp, Consulting Producer at Neko Productions, Head of Creative Development and Production at Pink Poodle Productions.

This interview will have us entering into the Cosmic world of STEM Learning with Eunice and Sabrina Moyle of Hello!Lucky. Today, we’ll be discussing their graphic novel series The Cosmic Adventures of Astrid and Stella, to decline of STEM Learning in the United States, and more! So, kick back and enjoy this interview.

Red: What was the inspiration behind your business, Hello!Lucky?

Sabrina and Eunice: We’re sisters, creators, and moms. We started Hello!Lucky back in 2003 as a greeting card company.  We fell in love with letterpress printing and were inspired to make cards because we loved sending and receiving them as kids. We were also inspired to bring the great design and pop culture we encountered growing up in Asia and the US in the 1980s to the letterpress medium.  Once we became moms, we saw a need for upbeat, funny, visually appealing, and inspiring children’s books. We teamed up with Abrams Publishing and have now published over 25 books for kids selling over 1.5 million copies, including a dozen Amazon Editor’s Picks. We lead with humor and vibrant visuals and cover topics that include love, kindness, mindfulness, potty training, first day of school, and, most recently, friendship and personal growth in our graphic novel series The Cosmic Adventures of Astrid and Stella.

Red: In a time where STEM learning is falling behind in Elementary and High Schools across the United States, how important to you as a sister creative team is it to combat this widespread problem?

Sabrina and Eunice: The Astrid and Stella series is aimed at giving early readers a fun, early introduction to STEM.  We want to spark their curiosity while getting them hooked on reading. Science and technology are hugely important to our future, particularly when you think about the massive role AI and robots are going to play in everything from how we work to how leaders make big decisions that affect our lives.  We believe it’s important to spark kids’ curiosity with ideas for how fun and creative STEM can be.  Bobo, a robot, plays a central role in The Cosmic Adventures of Astrid and Stella series for this reason.  He’s a funny mentor to the protagonists, Astrid and Stella, and (ironically) teaches them how to navigate human relationships with wry humor and hilarious inventions, which include a Feelings-o-nator, which detects how other people are feeling, a turn-tracker, a sleep-tracker, and a “Fix-it 5000,” which dispenses comfort items like tissues when people are feeling sad. As another example of getting kids thinking about STEM, we tackle AI in the third book in the series, Comet Together!, raising questions about possible AI futures, and we introduce Time Travel Tiger, an adventurer who travels to different planets and time periods to collect inventions and technology to share across the universe.

Red: In your book series regarding The Cosmic Adventures of Astrid & Stella, what was the inspiration behind this dynamic duo?

Sabrina and Eunice: The Astrid and Stella series is inspired by our childhood growing up in Asia as daughters of a diplomat.  Every two or three years, our family blasted off to new environments, cultures, and schools, leaving old friends behind, and making new ones.  Each new country was like a different planet!  This led us to have a pretty sophisticated awareness of differences and a keen interest in how different kinds of people can learn to get along. As the only two siblings in our family, we only had each other to fall back on, so we had a close relationship, though we definitely got on each other’s nerves sometimes – not unlike the humorous dynamic between Astrid and Stella.