A Letter from Sofia Kinzinger — A Long Time Coming, and Why It Means So Much to Us Now

A letter to the people who have walked this road with us.

To our community — the ones who have shown up, stayed curious, and kept caring —

I want to share something with you — not as an announcement (Adam already did that a few weeks ago), but as a conversation. The kind you have with people who actually know you, who have followed along through the loud chapters and the quiet ones, and who have never stopped asking, “So what’s next?”

This is what’s next.

My husband Adam has written a book — That's What Heroes Do — and it is coming out this May, just ahead of Memorial Day. Saying those words out loud still gets me emotional. This has been a long time coming, and the world we started this project in looks nothing like the world we are releasing it into today. So much has changed. And somehow, that has only made the message matter more.

When Adam first began working on this, he had just stepped away from Congress. The 2024 election was beginning to take shape and, like all of you, we were watching and waiting. At that point, none of us knew that Donald Trump would run again — and we certainly didn’t know he would win. We had no way of knowing that by the time this book was finished, we’d be living in the country we’re living in today, with our stress levels where they are, trying to hold onto our sense of purpose and raise a little boy in the middle of all of it.

By the time it was finished, it wasn’t just a story anymore. It had become something we needed — for Christian, for ourselves, and for this exact moment.

And that is why sharing it with you now feels so deeply meaningful to me. Because you have been with us through so much of it. You’ve read Adam’s words, listened to his voice, followed the hard conversations he’s had in public life. And now here is something softer. Something he wrote not for a debate stage or a news cycle — but for our son.

Christian is our one and only, and every new milestone he reaches, I feel the weight of what we are trying to give him. Not perfection. Not a shield from the world. Just a compass. A way of seeing people.

At its heart, That’s What Heroes Do is a simple, joyful children’s story about the beauty of helping others — about teaching kids that kindness is not weakness, it is power. That the role they play in their own community matters. That how you treat people can grow into more than a habit; it can become an identity, a way of living, even a path that makes the nation around you stronger.

There is also something woven through it about gratitude — about noticing the people who quietly show up, admiring their effort, and acknowledging them. In a world that is so loud about who to fear and who to fight, I find that so quietly revolutionary.

We want to sow kindness into Christian’s heart deeply enough that it stays there — even when the world around him doesn’t model it.

Because that is where we are right now, isn’t it? We live in a moment where kindness has become conditional — dependent on how you look, how you vote, what your faith is. Where so much energy goes into defeating those perceived as threats, without anyone stopping to ask whether true peace might actually begin with dismantling the fear inside our own hearts first.

Being a parent is a profound responsibility on its own. But it carries even more weight when you are raising a child in an environment that seems to have lost the thread of what values really mean. We want Christian to find that thread. We want him to hold onto it. And honestly — we want the same for every child who reads this book.

The timing, I think, says everything. Memorial Day is when we pause to honor those who gave everything in service to others — people who believed that showing up for your community was worth the cost. That is the spirit of this book. Adam wrote it. Christian inspired it. And you — this community — are exactly who we want to share it with first.

Pre-order details are linked below. But before any of that — I wanted to open up about what this book means to me as a mom, because I don’t think I’m the only one feeling this way. We are all living through something heavy right now, and I know I’m not alone in this deep desire to take back some control — to guide our children toward something sustainable, something empowering, something that will hold no matter what the world around them looks like.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for caring about what we do and say, even when it hasn’t been easy. It has meant more to our family than you know.

With so much love and gratitude,

Sofia Kinzinger

(follow Sofia on substack HERE

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“That’s What Heroes Do” Inspired by the author's experiences as an Air Force pilot, this story of adventure, curiosity, and patriotism will give children a deeper understanding of the many people who put others first every day to make America a nation of safety and opportunity. Perfect for classroom and homeschool studies about Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Veteran's Day, this hopeful book will encourage children to be tomorrow's heroes-and to start today.

To pre-order now, click HERE.