Kyle Scheele Books in Order

If you want the core philosophy first: We Put A Man On The Moon → How to Host a Viking Funeral
If you prefer funny, personal nonfiction: How to Host a Viking Funeral → We Put A Man On The Moon
For a family read-aloud: A Pizza with Everything on It → A Sundae with Everything on It

Kyle Scheele grew up in Springfield, Missouri, and he has built the kind of career that makes perfect sense only after you hear the whole story. He has worked as a speaker, writer, artist, and maker of oddball projects, and the thread running through all of it is his belief that ideas are not magic. They can be chased, built, tested, and shared.

He seems especially drawn to ideas that sound a little ridiculous at first.

Long before he was publishing picture books and adult nonfiction, Scheele was speaking to students. In high school he was active in student council, and those early years in front of a crowd helped shape what he wanted to say. He has often framed his message as a response to the talks he heard growing up, less about what not to do, more about what people can do right now to make life kinder, braver, and more useful.

That speaking work grew over time. Older bios describe him as a youth speaker who traveled widely, and his current work is broader, centered on creativity, innovation, and how ideas move from a spark to something real. On his site, Scheele says he spent years reading about the creative process, studying innovators, and interviewing authors, filmmakers, musicians, CEOs, and entrepreneurs. He is less interested in waiting for inspiration than in figuring out why certain ideas actually work.

That question led to the projects that made him widely known online. Scheele has staged a fake marathon, built a centaur bicycle, and turned a Christmas gift for his dad into a video that spread far beyond Missouri. One of his best known experiments was the Viking funeral project. Around his thirtieth birthday, he built a cardboard Viking ship and burned it as a symbolic farewell to his twenties. Later he invited people from around the world to send in their regrets, mistakes, and old hurts for a second, much larger burning.

That project became How to Host a Viking Funeral, a funny and surprisingly tender book about regret, change, and the strange power of doing something concrete with feelings that are hard to name. Readers who click with Scheele usually like that mix. He can be sincere without getting preachy, and silly without losing the point. Even when he is talking about self doubt or disappointment, there is usually cardboard, hot glue, a weird plan, and a reason to keep going.

His books for younger readers carry the same energy. A Pizza with Everything on It, created with illustrator Andy J. Pizza, starts with a familiar kid request and follows it until family pizza night turns cosmic. A Sundae with Everything on It takes a similar anything-can-happen spirit and sends a boy and his quantum physicist mom across universes in search of the perfect dessert. Then there is We Put A Man On The Moon, an earlier nonfiction book that argues life makes more sense as a story than a test. Across all three, Scheele keeps returning to imagination, risk, and choosing action over passivity.

He likes big feelings, big jokes, and very literal cardboard.

Scheele still lives in Springfield, Missouri, with his wife, Lindsay, and their four children. When he is not onstage or writing, his public bios have long noted the same small domestic detail: he likes reading, writing, and helping his kids build forts out of the furniture. It fits. His work, whether for adults or kids, keeps coming back to the same invitation, make the thing, try the idea, and see where it leads.