Goldie Hawn Is in Her Golden Era! The Legend on Love, Her Famous Family and How Joy Carries Her Through (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• In a new interview with PEOPLE, Goldie Hawn opens up about her famous family, her 43-year relationship with Kurt Russell and her new chapter as a children’s book author

• The Oscar winner is releasing The After-School Kindness Crew: Pooch on the Loose #1 on May 5

• The book incorporates tools of MindUP, the preventative mental health program she founded more than 20 years ago

The unmistakable sound of Goldie Hawn’s laugh — warm, inviting, playful — carries through her Los Angeles home on a recent April afternoon.

Sitting in her whimsically decorated kitchen, featuring a black-and-white checkerboard dining table and quirky chairs complete with fish motifs, Hawn spots her English Labrador Roy, who has wandered in from another room.

“There you are!” she says brightly as he settles down on the floor nearby.

A few moments later, seemingly unprompted, Hawn lets out the giggle that first endeared her to fans on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In nearly 60 years ago.

“I laugh all the time. . . . It’s kind of a joy for life,” she later says of her unshakable spirit. “I have a tickle inside. I have it. I’ve always had it. It’s a gift.”

Hawn, 80, is indeed filled with joy — and she’s eager for others to feel it too. After decades of delighting fans with her brilliant performances in comedies like Private Benjamin, Overboard and The First Wives Club, Hawn is turning to a different medium to spread the power of positivity. Her first children’s book, The After-School Kindness Crew: Pooch on the Loose #1 (out May 5), is a tender and funny tale meant to teach empathy, kindness and, yes, joy to the next generation.

“My life’s mission is to be happy. My life’s mission is to be be an example for my children and my family,” says Hawn, who has four adult children and eight grandchildren in the blended family she shares with Kurt Russell, her romantic partner of 43 years.

Cowritten with veteran author Lin Oliver, Hawn’s book follows three outlier elementary school students who strike up a friendship and decide to find a home for a rambunctious shelter dog.

The book, the first in a series, is an extension of MindUP, Hawn’s preventative mental health program that’s been utilized in schools for 20-plus years to teach kids about the human brain and how to regulate emotions.

But this is no step-by-step instruction guide.

“You’re not going to walk away going, ‘Oh, this is a teaching book.’ You’re not even going to know it’s happening,” says Hawn.

One of her first (rave) reviews came courtesy of her 12-year-old granddaughter Rio. “She loved that it was funny, and it is funny, I have to say,” says Hawn.

Oliver, a New York Times bestselling author who previously worked with Henry Winkler on the Hank Zipzer series, was moved by Hawn’s enthusiasm. “She’s so genuine in her love of this material and the need for this material,” says the writer, who scripted a “petit homage” to Hawn with the character Ms. Gold.

The kind and welcoming teacher is described in the book as someone “who laughed easily, and when she did, there was a twinkle in her eye.”

Hawn ensures her twinkle stays no matter what she’s facing. “As you get older, things can get harder,” she says.

The power of positivity keeps her going. “Your state of mind matters. How you look at life matters, how you value moments in your life matters, because you’re feeding your own brain,” she says. “So I say, ‘Right now, everything is amazing.’”

She has many sources of joy, like spending time at her home in Aspen (“It’s eye candy every day, all day, which is very good for your spirit”) or playing a round of golf.

But most of all, Hawn enjoys quality time with her family: Russell, 75; their children, actors Oliver Hudson, 49, Kate Hudson, 47, and Wyatt Russell, 39, as well as psychotherapist Boston Russell, 46; and their grandchildren, who range in age from 2 to 22. “Wherever they are, I’m happy,” she says.

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Hawn and Russell, who first fell for each other when they made the 1984 drama Swing Shift, are one of Hollywood’s longest-lasting couples. So what’s their secret? According to Hawn, it’s simply being “the right match.”

After more than four decades together, she still appreciates the “freedom” she feels with him. “When I say freedom, it means liberation. I don’t feel penned in,” she explains. “We don’t always agree on stuff, which is fine. We’re both very spontaneous. [Our relationship] fed on a lot of goodness, a lot of wonderful life together.”

Hawn, who began performing as a dancer when she was a child in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., is clearly relishing this stage of her life, focusing on family and MindUP rather than a Hollywood career.

“I think ultimately every life has to have its sections. . . . Doing the same thing over and over again for your whole life is not as interesting to me,” says Hawn. “And I decided at probably 55 or something. …‘What are you going to do for this next part of your life?’ And I knew that there was more out there to learn and to do.”

The After-School Kindness Crew: Pooch on the Loose #1 is available May 5.

For more on Goldie Hawn, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE.

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