Marshall, like so many of Shields’s colleagues, extols her professionalism: “When you star in a show, you’re leading the company onstage and off, and she’s wonderful that way, because she’s kind and gracious and hard-working. The wardrobe department loved her so much that they made a replica of one of her costumes for Rowan for Halloween.”
Shields's latest endeavor is her just-published second children’s book, It’s The Best Day Ever, Dad!, the lighthearted tale of two little girls who have a day out with their father. She was surprised to discover that writing for kids—a dream harbored by seemingly every other person in America—was quite difficult. “It took me more time, relatively, to write my first children’s book [last year’s Welcome to Your World, Baby] than it did Down Came the Rain,” she says. Every sentence had to be simple, crystal clear and short, which is harder than it looks. “For me, it’s much easier to be verbose,” she says. “I was like, ‘god, it’s easier writing about depression.’ ”
This sort of forthright admission is typical of Shields. For someone who has been famous practically since birth, she’s remarkably open. “Brooke is incredibly approachable,” Bushnell says. “She’s gone through a lot in her life and come through it being a very empathetic person. Despite the fact that she’s beautiful and brilliant, she’s also the girl next door. If you go anywhere with her, there’s a constant flow of people coming up to her and saying things like, ‘You met my sister 20 years ago!’ And Brooke is always like, ‘Oh, yes! How is your sister doing?’ ”
