{"id":68110,"date":"2025-07-16T21:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T21:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/68110\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T21:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T21:01:08","slug":"how-josh-gad-gets-his-daughters-to-choose-books-over-screens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/68110\/","title":{"rendered":"How Josh Gad gets his daughters to choose books over screens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Josh Gad is best known for voicing lovable snowman Olaf in Disney\u2019s “Frozen,” but at home, he plays a very different role: that of an overly enthusiastic travel planner and book evangelist for his daughters. The actor and father recently partnered with Kindle Kids to encourage summer reading \u2013 something he admits has become a small miracle in his own household.<\/p>\n

Fresh off a family trip to Malta, Gad spoke with USA TODAY about his mission to raise curious, engaged readers, how he navigates family travel with a jam-packed itinerary, and why his Kindle is currently filled with historical nonfiction and literary classics. Along the way, he reveals his go-to vacation splurges, travel pet peeves, and the moment he realized his kids had started choosing books over screens \u2013 on their own.<\/p>\n

The following interview was edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n

What prompted you to partner with Kindle Kids?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Josh Gad: <\/strong>When we travel, it\u2019s a very difficult thing to pack a bunch of heavy (books), and so when this technology presented itself, it was a no-brainer. You know, my wife and I, in general, are people who want them to \u2013 if they\u2019re going to use technology \u2013 for it to be technology we can get behind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

… You engage with reading, you know, the Book Crew<\/a>, which is something that comes with signing up. It\u2019s just a really fun opportunity for younger kids to utilize, to be part of something that gives them a sense of community, and it was really engaging for them.\u00a0We just got back from Malta, and\u2026 I\u2019m the worst person to travel with when it comes to my family because I push, push \u2013 we get up at like 6 a.m., and we don\u2019t stop going until like 10 p.m. It\u2019s always like, “Gotta go see history!”\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there were times when it was super hot, and so there was one day in particular when we got back to the room, and I was so impressed because I do basically “free time” for my daughters. And they could have easily turned on their iPads to watch something, and they started reading books. My wife and I just looked at each other, and we were like:\u00a0“This is a miracle.” …\u00a0The fact that our kids are voluntarily choosing to do this is like everything you could hope for as a parent.<\/p>\n

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You just got back from Malta, what other family trips do you have planned for the summer?\u00a0<\/p>\n

JG: <\/strong>We\u2019re gonna go again (to Europe) later this summer, and we are still deciding which country we\u2019re gonna go to. I always like to go places I\u2019ve never been. But I also love return trips. Italy is the favorite out of ours \u2013 my wife is Italian and that\u2019s where we go more often than not.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But we\u2019re going to try new places this summer. We\u2019re thinking about Croatia, Switzerland, maybe Austria or Germany \u2013 giving the kids a sense of culture, a sense of appreciation for, as I said before, history and art.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those are the kinds of trips we love the most because it\u2019s entertainment \u2013 we try to make it a really fun experience while, in the process, giving them the ability to learn something new.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For instance, in Malta \u2013 I had never been before, and I\u2019m a history buff \u2013 and being able to walk my daughter through these ancient medieval fortified walls, or bring them to a Neolithic temple \u2026 and sort of walk them through this written history where everybody from the Phoenicians to the Arabs to the Knights of Malta have all been present, it was really \u2026\u00a0cool to engage with them in a methodology of learning where you’re actually walking in the footsteps of ancient cultures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And seeing their eyes light up \u2013 we went to this place called the Hypogeum, a 6,000-year-old burial site for the Neolithic community that lived there \u2013 and to look at them and go, \u201cGuys, this is older than the Great Pyramid, this is older than Stonehenge,\u201d and see them engaged in a way that is really cool.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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You sound like a very go-go-go traveler. What\u2019s your family\u2019s \u2013 or your own \u2013 travel pet peeve?\u00a0<\/p>\n

JG:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t like when I do (a beach destination); I then need to do something else because I feel like I\u2019ve wasted my vacation \u2026 I feel like being idle is like a wasted opportunity of travel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a consumer. I love to consume information \u2013 obviously food, but I love to consume culture, knowledge, music, history.\u00a0So, like, I get travel FOMO (fear of missing out). And what I mean by that is when I\u2019m in a place, and I don\u2019t see it all, I get FOMO.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, much to the chagrin of my wife and my daughters, they have to suffer some of the consequences of my curiosity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They are always like, \u201cCan we please do a day where we do nothing?\u201d And I\u2019m like, \u201cIt depends on how many more days we have!\u201d<\/p>\n

Story continues below.<\/p>\n

\"play\"<\/p>\n

Travel tips for international trips<\/p>\n

Travel smarter and safer on international trips with these tips.<\/p>\n

What do you tend to splurge on during your travels?\u00a0<\/p>\n

JG:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m never more alive than when I\u2019m out on the open water. I think that\u2019s the byproduct of being born in South Florida and being raised by the ocean.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of my favorite things to do is get out and explore a new area by water. So, oftentimes, we go to Lake Como (in Italy) or to many of the great lakes in Lago Maggiore or Lago d’Orta, and we will always rent a boat and explore the perimeters of these beautiful regions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Similarly, when we go down south to Positano or Malta or Capri, we do the same. So, everywhere we go that has either a lake or Mediterranean coast or an ocean \u2013 whatever it is \u2013 if we\u2019re in proximity to water, I’ll charter a boat. We\u2019ll be on the water at some point.\u00a0That\u2019s my big splurge. That\u2019s usually where I drop the most money, and my wife will go, \u201cAre you nuts?\u201d And I\u2019ll say, \u201cYes \u2013 but think about the memories.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I also love to splurge on good food. I love when my daughters are in a different culture and eat the cuisine of that culture. We\u2019re very adamant about not doing chicken fingers and burgers.\u00a0You will eat what the people of this region eat. And sometimes they won’t enjoy it \u2013 but as long as they try things, we\u2019re happy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So we try to take them to meals that are influenced by the region we\u2019re visiting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What’s on your Kindle reading list right now?\u00a0<\/p>\n

JG:<\/strong>\u00a0I love early reading nonfiction or historical fiction. One of my favorite authors is Erik Larson. I love “In the Garden of Beasts” and “The Splendid and the Vile.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also been absolutely the biggest fan of a young author named Madeline Miller, who wrote “The Song of Achilles” \u2013 they\u2019re sort of Greek mythology-influenced books.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And now I\u2019m doing something very interesting \u2013 I\u2019m actually having a summer of classics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I really don\u2019t remember “The Odyssey” or “The Iliad,” and maybe it\u2019s the presence of one of the upcoming movies that\u2019s piqued my curiosity. So I\u2019m going back and revisiting some of the greats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never read “Moby Dick” \u2013 that is on my list. I\u2019m going back and reading “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” because my daughters have never read them and did not know who Mark Twain was.\u00a0And I was like, \u201cThis is outrageous.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s an ambitious summer, for sure. But I\u2019m excited to check off some books that I otherwise never got around to reading.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This story was updated to fix a typo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh Gad is best known for voicing lovable snowman Olaf in Disney\u2019s “Frozen,” but at home, he plays…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":68111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[647,691,8015,347,14087,648,1022,185,665,3189,2488,171,246,9528,3193,48263,14078,14084,2487,25231,48264,425,666,644,663,50,450,1457,14081,1451,3190,645,2490,1164,646,67,132,68,11331,48265,8813],"class_list":{"0":"post-68110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-affiliate","9":"tag-ai","10":"tag-american","11":"tag-article","12":"tag-article-plus","13":"tag-arts","14":"tag-books","15":"tag-celebrities","16":"tag-celebrities-u0026-entertainment-news","17":"tag-content","18":"tag-enabled","19":"tag-entertainment","20":"tag-family","21":"tag-family-films","22":"tag-films","23":"tag-gad","24":"tag-great","25":"tag-great-american-vacation","26":"tag-highlights","27":"tag-josh","28":"tag-josh-gad","29":"tag-local","30":"tag-local-affiliate-arts-u0026-entertainment","31":"tag-modular","32":"tag-modular-story","33":"tag-news","34":"tag-overall","35":"tag-overall-positive","36":"tag-plus","37":"tag-positive","38":"tag-sharing","39":"tag-story","40":"tag-story-highlights-ai-enabled","41":"tag-travel","42":"tag-u0026","43":"tag-united-states","44":"tag-unitedstates","45":"tag-us","46":"tag-usat","47":"tag-usat-content-sharing-entertainment","48":"tag-vacation"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}