Although Mull is a New York Times best-selling author, with a newly released book to promote, he told the eager crowd about his family, his struggles as a writer and even his divorce.

He wanted the students to know that although life sometimes presents challenges, there is always a reason to keep going.

“One thing that I’ve learned in life is that when we have hard things happen, when we go through hard things, sometimes we have to hang in there and push forward,” he said.

Recently, Mull has been resumed visiting schools, particularly in Idaho, Arizona, and his home state of Utah, since the COVID-19 pandemic put a pause on his travels.

While many children’s authors visit schools to meet their readers and promote their books, Mull’s main goal is to inspire students to read, and teach them how to harness their own creativity.

“I think if we get kids reading for fun it cures a lot of literacy problems, and it cures a lot of ignorance problems in the world. If you make people into readers, it exposes us to a lot of ideas,” Mull said. “I’m also trying to push them toward things that build imagination. I think that sometimes that gets a little missed in education … I think our greatest resource we have as a country is our imaginations.”

Mull’s latest book, “Return of the Dragon Slayers,” was released on Oct. 26 and is the fifth and final book in his “Dragonwatch” series, which is a continuation of his five-book series “Fablehaven.”

“If anything I feel like it’s the better half of the Fablehaven story, I feel like it’s a better ending than the first series had,” Mull said. “If you liked Fablehaven, you will probably like this even better.”

In the universe shared by the “Fablehaven” and “Dragonwatch” books, siblings Seth and Kendra discover that their grandparents are caretakers of a sanctuary for magical creatures called Fablehaven. Over the next ten books, the brother and sister duo embark on adventures involving trolls, satyrs, witches, imps, fairies, and of course, dragons.

For Mull, “Fablehaven” was the series that changed everything. After the first book’s publication in 2006, it sold over 2 million copies by 2011 and had been translated into 25 different languages for readers all over the world to enjoy.

But “Fablehaven” wasn’t Mull’s first work that he had tried to get published. The first book he had written, an early draft of what later became his “Beyonders” series, was rejected by publishers. On his website, it says he began writing the novels after graduating from BYU in 2000, where he mostly wrote short fiction.

According to Mull, it was the support of his wife and his love for writing that kept him at it, even if it would never amount to more than just a hobby.

“I cared enough that even if I never made any money at it, I wanted to do it my whole life. And I think that maybe was the secret that kept me going,” Mull said.

After over a decade of sharing the importance of reading with schoolchildren, Mull says he now has adults in their early twenties approaching him and telling him that his presentation and books were their inspiration to start reading. And to him, that’s the best feeling of all.

“If nothing else I’m doing some kind of good in the world, in that way,” Mull said.