Bigger Than Me with Erica Simone Turnipseed

[00:00:00] Young people can create meaning that their elders didn't know existed even though all the components were there. And that's happening all the time. What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black and Published, bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds.

[00:00:21] Today, I'm dropping your ears with a bonus episode featuring Erica Simone Turnipseed, author of The New Children's Book, Bigger Than Me. Now, if you, like me, know Erica for her adult novels, A Love Noir in Hunger, don't worry.

[00:00:38] She's working on another book for the grown-ups that's coming out in 2024. But because of all that's happened the last few years, she felt compelled to use her words to reach the youngest readers. We all wonder. We all are kind of in spaces where we can feel overwhelmed.

[00:00:56] But isn't it safer to open a book and read about somebody who might be experiencing that thing or might be wondering about those issues? So books are the place, but the battleground is with the books right now.

[00:01:10] Erica's picture book, Bigger Than Me, follows siblings Luna and Zion as they navigate the overwhelm they feel by the big words they keep hearing the adults say around them. She explains why she decided to have her characters use actual building blocks to make meaning of their lives.

[00:01:28] Plus, why hope springs eternal for Erica despite the ravages of the pandemic and racial reckoning in 2020. And the dream her daughter had at three that let her know the kids are all right. That and more is next when Black and Published continues.

[00:01:50] What inspired you to write for children? I had long thought that I would write for children at some point. When I started my professional writing journey, I was not a mom.

[00:02:00] I was just in a different place in my life and didn't necessarily feel like I had the fodder to write children's books. But I always loved children's books, particularly because my mom was a reading specialist and she kept a stack of children's books in our home

[00:02:19] well beyond the time that my brothers and I would be readers of them ourselves. So I definitely felt like there's something in there that I'd like to explore at some point. And really, the opportunity presented itself during COVID. I had been thinking for a few years.

[00:02:37] Yeah, I need to kind of figure out how this is going to happen. And I realized that there were some differences in how the children's book ecosystem looks relative to the adult one. And I didn't know how to really access it.

[00:02:52] I was still working on an adult novel at that point. I was kind of knee deep in all the things and just figured I would get to it at some point. But COVID, we were all home. I then had children in middle school.

[00:03:07] I was doing all the mom related things and really trying to, along with my husband, try to figure out how to help our kids to understand this unprecedented world that we were now in. Of course, we know that racial reckoning happened right along with the unfolding of COVID.

[00:03:26] Right? These issues of anti-black racism are not new to this country, not new to those of us who have to live with those realities. But something about being at home and unable to do anything else but to connect

[00:03:42] via our devices and televisions made it so that we all saw it, right? Including our kids, there was no way to keep them from seeing it because it kept on playing and playing and replaying.

[00:03:53] So we were trying to negotiate that as well, trying to help them to understand what was going on. We were making decisions about how we wanted to stand in solidarity with people who were raising

[00:04:05] their voices against police brutality. So we did attend some marches and rallies that we felt would be safe for our kids because we knew that not every space was safe. And I was posting about

[00:04:17] these things on social media. So the woman who would become my agent, who I did know in other spaces before, she was seeing my posts along with anyone else. She was responding to them.

[00:04:32] And when Congressman John Lewis passed away, we went and paid our respects. So we're here in DC. My son had recently done a project about Congressman Lewis and was especially moved by his passing.

[00:04:47] So we went, we paid our respects. Like I said, my son was actually interviewed by a local news station about us being there. I posted about that. And my agent, who then was not my agent,

[00:05:01] had asked me, have you thought about how to write about this in a children's book? Because it seems like there's something there. I said, you know, I hadn't really thought about it, but I saw what she meant, right? Because certainly we were looking for resources.

[00:05:18] And I knew that other parents would be looking for resources for all these things because there are lots of difficult conversations we have to have with kids. And it's helpful sometimes when

[00:05:28] you have a book that opens up the conversation. I want to go back to something that you said right in the beginning, when you said navigating children's publishing is different from navigating publishing for adults. What did you mean by that?

[00:05:44] I have to say, I'm still learning this. But what I realize is that the people who publish children's books and adult books are different people, right? So that's one piece. The other piece is that marketing books to kids is just different, right? Most kids are not

[00:06:00] making decisions to attend book signings at 7pm on Thursday. Right? So you're always operating through other intermediaries. You're operating through parents, you're operating through teachers and through librarians. Kids learn about books through those means, particularly when we're talking about little kids and children's picture books, right?

[00:06:26] As they get older, they might have other means of finding out an Instagram account or whatever. And so they have more direct access to books and to the authors, and they can follow authors

[00:06:39] and that kind of thing. But until then, you know, they really are operating through these spaces. And these spaces are pretty complex, you know, the whole sort of library network and how

[00:06:50] books get presented to libraries and how they find out about it and the ways in which librarians help expose kids to stories is just pretty extraordinary. It's a sophisticated enterprise, and I just didn't really know how that looked. So I realized that I don't have to know

[00:07:11] every piece of it intimately, but I do need to know enough about it because now that I'm in the space of promoting my book, you know, I need to know how to go about it, what organizations can tap me into those networks. And even though I have traditionally

[00:07:28] published my book and I do get support from my publisher, it's still very much the responsibility of the author to do the work that she wants to do, you know? And as you do more, they do more.

[00:07:43] That's the other thing. So then in having to get the book out through intermediaries, and knowing that you're tackling, I won't say sensitive topics, but topics that people can be sensitive towards just because of the state of the socio-political landscape right now.

[00:08:07] How do you break through to appeal to parents and librarians and schools and the book fairs that go to them to carry this book that is timely and is necessary for a lot of our students,

[00:08:25] but some may be hesitant to do so again because of the socio-political landscape that we're living in right now? So that's a great question and a difficult question to answer because, you know, so many teachers in librarians in particular are in very unenviable positions, right? Life is hard.

[00:08:45] This is not new. This is true. And right now we are dealing with a lot of forces arrayed against telling the truth. And so for those people who work most directly with kids, right? Who see the kids in their school settings, in their school libraries,

[00:09:06] in public libraries after school or on weekends or whenever else kids might go, they are witnessing kids who are trying to make sense of the world. And they know that books are probably the safest way of helping them to do that, right? Because we all wonder, we all

[00:09:28] are kind of in spaces where we can feel overwhelmed. But isn't it safer to open a book and read about somebody who might be experiencing that thing or who might be wondering about those issues or

[00:09:41] that's safer than going to unknowledgeable folks who might steer us in the wrong direction. It's safer than going to the internet where you might get as much bad information as you can get good. It's safer than going to social media where people might exploit your vulnerability, right?

[00:10:02] So books are the place. But the battleground is with the books right now. Like I said, I don't envy those people who know that it's important to offer kids these books. But there are

[00:10:18] people who are afraid or they think that it's like a Pandora's box, right? That if we open this box, then we're somehow going to fill these kids' heads with ideas that can be destructive to them or

[00:10:31] change who they understand themselves to be more often than not. That's not happening. Kids are living in the world like we are as adults. They are experiencing things. They are hearing things. They are experiencing the byproduct of challenges that their parents are having, right? If

[00:10:52] mom or dad loses their job, it impacts what we eat, what they can buy for me, what we can do on Saturdays, right? If grandma gets ill and can't buy her medicine, these are real issues that have

[00:11:10] real implications for kids. And so how do I break through? The best thing I can do is make sure people know about the book that they can associate a name and a face that helps, that they understand,

[00:11:26] that I understand they are already having these conversations and that the book is actually a tool. The words in my book aren't the only big words that kids are hearing. And if they can see that I

[00:11:41] am on their side, that I understand, that I can be discerning in how I express things in different settings and with different age groups of kids, then hopefully they'll trust me

[00:11:56] and want to present my book as an option. So I live in Florida, which already has its problems. But I live in an area of Florida where Jacksonville is the northeast part of the state and

[00:12:10] a county that is just 10 minutes, 10, 20 minutes away from me by car ride, Clay County, is leading the nation in bookbands, right? And books are being positioned, you call it a Pandora's box. But I think of it like almost like a gateway drug to what conservative forces are calling

[00:12:35] woke thought that will make white children hate themselves or something. I don't know. But what I have always viewed books as was as a way to open the mind to perspectives that you may

[00:12:49] not encounter in your home or in your neighborhood or in your immediate environment. And what we know about COVID is that the United States populace, depending on where you live, the color of your skin, the job that you held, experienced a global pandemic very different from other people

[00:13:11] that may have lived, say, a 20 minute car ride down the road. So then in trying to break through to those intermediaries to reach their children and explain to them the big words that everybody

[00:13:26] is throwing around like COVID and pandemic and racial reckoning among other things. How did you come up with the concept to distill those complex ideas down into literal building blocks that children would play with to build up not only their understanding and their vocabulary,

[00:13:49] but also perhaps their empathy for what was happening in the world. Wow. So, you know, certainly the biggest challenge is recognizing that people are operating in these little silos and they're also fearful. And so they're hunkering down and just trying to protect

[00:14:11] their little bit of whatever they think they have. So I understand that that's what's going on. I don't necessarily agree with how people are going about it, but I understand that that's what's happening. I know that there are people who will resist a message because they

[00:14:33] don't want to hear from the messenger. So in those instances, if they're not looking to hear from me, then they won't. What's nice about a book is that you're not first confronted with the messenger, you're first confronted with the message.

[00:14:52] Hmm. Hopefully some people will realize that they're doing a very poor job of keeping everything uncomfortable from their kids. And so they as parents, caregivers, teachers, librarians actually have the opportunity to couch any book in the terms and the context that they are living in.

[00:15:20] Right. This is something that is amazing and humbling and occasionally not so great when you are an author, right? Because once you've written something, it's out in the world. And people have the opportunity to do with it what they are inclined to do. We can only hope

[00:15:40] that our message was clear enough. And we operated with our intention with such clarity that our message won't get corrupted. But at the same time, we can't say what exactly is going to

[00:15:53] happen. This is not always a bad thing because while I write from my position where I am, where I am in my life, where I am physically in the world, there are people who may read

[00:16:09] from a very different place and they may glean something from it that I didn't know was there, but that is helpful to them. So that's not necessarily a bad thing. But we know that

[00:16:22] intentions and words and things can be corrupted. And sometimes we just have to deal with those things when they come or we hope that folks will be more discerning than what they're

[00:16:33] hearing, which sometimes that happens and sometimes it doesn't. But in terms of how I chose to think about these words as the building box, it's kind of like a metaphor for our own development.

[00:16:48] I don't think that we are blank slate, but I do think that we have the capacity to build upon what our foundational elements are. And we can build out whatever it is that we're going to

[00:17:01] build out based on our interests and concerns and our exposure. And the same is true for kids, right? So they are literally learning language. They are learning to read. Everything is new and they're trying to make sense of it. And they try to connect something new with something

[00:17:20] they've experienced before and create meaning. That's exactly what you're doing with the box, right? So you have letters, these letters, they can look like symbols. They can look like something pretty. But they actually have a meaning. They have a sound. And then you learn,

[00:17:40] okay, I can put these sounds together and I start to build something. So I'm extending the meaning. When we have our children, hopefully we are able to be somewhat thoughtful about the fact

[00:17:54] that we are building or putting in place things in their lives to build and create meaning for them because they will not be children forever. And children also, they might build some things that we as adults haven't thought of yet. And that's happening all the time. So,

[00:18:19] you know, I mean, they'll create meaning that we don't know is there is my point. The building blocks are always in the ether somewhere, but we just didn't do with it what

[00:18:32] they are able to do with it. And so young people can create meaning that their elders didn't know existed even though all the components were there. So we're always in that space. We're always building. And I think that the building blocks, physical blocks, are just a really

[00:18:48] great metaphor for that. And hopefully as parents and caregivers, we can be thinking about that. And talking about how children make new meaning out of old concepts and new technologies, with your book ending on such a hopeful note, what meaning would you want children to glean

[00:19:07] from the words that you end on, including liberty, democracy and freedom? Well, I really hope that kids realize that those things are in their hands. They will understand them in one way when they read the book. The first time they will

[00:19:22] understand them in another way as they move through their lives, but that they actually do have the capacity to create meaningful and positive change. And that happens by working together. It happens by recognizing other people's humanity. I have to be hopeful

[00:19:41] because I don't have any other choice. I mean, I am a wife. I'm a mother. I'm a sister. I'm a writer. I'm all these things in life. But in particular, when I think about being a mother,

[00:19:58] one of the things that I chose to do was bring more people into the world. And in the normal course of things, they will see the world for longer. They will experience

[00:20:10] this future for longer than I will. And they may do the very same thing I did and have a child or two or five. I don't know. So I have to be hopeful that there's something

[00:20:24] that we can do, that we haven't done yet. I want for kids to recognize that it is normal to feel overwhelmed. It is normal to feel concerned or scared or have sad feelings

[00:20:38] or whatever it is about the things around us, that we all feel those things. But we have to sort of figure out where's the hope in this? Well, the hope comes from working in community.

[00:20:55] The hope comes from seeing that we are bigger than the sum of our parts and that we can build things that will leave a legacy of hope, equality, peace, you know, the things that we all want. We

[00:21:11] want to have neighbors who when we walk out the door, they aren't so angry at us that they want to mull us down. We don't want those kinds of neighbors. We want neighbors who are waving at

[00:21:20] us when we wave at them that when we have a block party it's fun because you can't have a block party if you're the only one who sat out, you're eliminated and hot dogs.

[00:21:32] We want to live in community with people who are happy to be there. The only way that we do that is if we make sure that those people can pursue life, liberty and happiness as well.

[00:21:48] I hope that kids see that it's in their hands. So the book has been out for exactly a month today. Exactly a month today. What has been the response from children, parents, even your own children

[00:22:03] to what you have put into this landscape? You know, it's really been tremendous. For me, it's just humbling. You know, as I mentioned earlier, you write something, you have an idea of what it is that you're trying to do, what you're trying to put out into the world

[00:22:18] and you hope, right, that people will receive it in that way. And then you realize that you're touching people in places that you didn't know existed. You know, I'm meeting people

[00:22:30] who I didn't know existed. I remember the first reading that I did, which was a couple of days after the book came out, there was a three generation family there, right? There was grandma, mom, and

[00:22:43] daughter. Daughter was five. Daughter was a new reader. She was excited to, you know, read some words with me together. She was excited. Mom came up to me and said, you know, I work as an immigration attorney. And I really appreciate that you are representing

[00:23:01] the children of my clients. Grandma came up to me and couldn't hold back tears. Right now, even as I'm talking to you, I don't know what inspired all those tears because she said,

[00:23:15] you know, this is just so important. What you've done is really important. The fact that you're just that people can see themselves in this book, that all kinds of people can see themselves in

[00:23:28] this book. And then she was not completing her sentences or tears were. And I started to get kind of choked up because I knew what it was I was trying to do with the book. But then it

[00:23:42] gets out there and then it reaches people and it touches people. And you know, I have to say when I look back at it myself after that family left because I just had to just look at it again

[00:23:54] with new eyes. And you know, I realized that and I'm not the illustrator, Kara Bodegun Hakino who is an illustrator who lives in the Philippines. She did a beautiful job of rendering the words right of bringing them to life through her art. But she really did represent everybody.

[00:24:15] And that was an important part for me because that's what our communities look like. And I'm grateful that of all the people who I have seen who have come to my readings of this book,

[00:24:28] that when they walk away with the book, they see themselves in the book. So that's really important. That's something that I've heard from even a cousin of mine who is a principal in Prince George's County outside of Washington, D.C. And she's like, you know,

[00:24:43] this book looks like the kids in my school. And so that was just important, you know, the main characters are brown children with kinky curly hair which I'm delighted about and that was important.

[00:24:56] But their community looks like so many different communities. And I think that that is necessary because when people can see that we're working together toward a common goal, then they realize

[00:25:10] that maybe I can do that too. So my final question for you today, what is your hope for children and young readers? Well, I just really hope that they see possibilities. You know, when I have been

[00:25:27] signing books, I'm writing Dream Bigger. Bigger obviously a connection to the title Bigger than me, but just isn't that the thing that we want our children to be able to do is to dream,

[00:25:41] is to imagine a future that we as they're, as the people who maybe brought them in the world, as the people who are raising them, as the people who love them, who are teaching them,

[00:25:52] we might not even be able to imagine that for them. We don't know all the things that live inside of these little children that we see assembled in front of us on the carpet in the second grade classroom. Right? But that doesn't mean it's not there. And so

[00:26:10] that's what I want is for kids to be able to dream bigger. You know, I will share this one experience that really brought this home to me. I lost my parents very early in my parenting

[00:26:27] journey. Right? So that wasn't on my list. Right? I was envisioning my kids knowing their grandparents, my parents and my husband's parents for many, many years. But that wasn't in

[00:26:38] the cards. And so my daughter who at the time she was three and she still napped in the middle of day. She got up and she said, you know, mommy, when you get a chance, I'd like to talk to you.

[00:26:53] So for one, when your three year old child tells you when you have a chance, when you have a chance, I'd like to talk to you. Then you make time. So I sat down and I said,

[00:27:03] okay, you know, you can tell mommy whatever you want to tell me. And she said while I was asleep in my dream, God told me to learn many languages. Okay, I was happy. I was sitting down because

[00:27:16] if I wasn't sitting down, I would have fallen to the floor. So I was like, I said, oh, okay. And she said, that's it. I just wanted to tell you. And then she bounced off to go

[00:27:26] to do whatever she was going to do. And I, well, so I will say that my daughter is a polyglot, right? She's fluent in French. She's taught herself Spanish. She's teaching herself Portuguese.

[00:27:44] She says that language is easy. I'm like, it's easy for you. It's not easy for everybody. So I remember every time I think about that, and she looks at me because now she's almost 16. So

[00:27:56] she can roll her eyes when I say these things and remind her. But I get choked up because I remember that dream when she was three. And I don't know where that dream will take her.

[00:28:09] I don't know. But my child isn't the only child who has a dream. And I don't, I'm not trying to be sort of trite and go through the I have a dream platitudes. I'm talking about there's something that lives inside of children. And sometimes they have a person

[00:28:27] to share it with. I'm happy that I was in a position to be the one that my daughter saw when she woke up from her nap and that she felt comfortable to share it with me what

[00:28:37] her dream was. That doesn't happen for every child. But that doesn't mean that every child shouldn't have the opportunity to dream bigger, to dream those dreams and to start to create a path.

[00:28:52] And for those people in their lives to help them, to create a path towards something that we maybe don't even understand ourselves. We don't know where it's going to take them. We might not

[00:29:03] know how we're going to help to support them to do it. And they will have many, many naysayers along the way. That's another whole conversation for another time. But you know, when they start to be 10 and 11 and 12 years old, they will have their own self

[00:29:18] doubts. They will have classmates and other peers who will tell them that what they're doing is foolish and stupid and unnecessary. They may have teachers who will tell them that these things are not important or that they don't. They, that particular child, they don't have capacity

[00:29:37] to live into that dream. I want children to dream bigger. I hope that they will realize that, wait, I can create this world and I will need people and I will need help. And there will be

[00:29:52] people who don't want to be helpful, but there are people who will want to be helpful. Thank you. That was beautiful. Big thank you to Erica Simone Turnup Seed for being here today on Black

[00:30:04] and Published. Make sure you check out Erica's picture book, Bigger Than Me, out now from Anthem Am. And if you're not following Erica, check her out on the socials. She's at erica.turnupseed on Instagram. And don't worry, we'll have the full Black and Published

[00:30:22] conversation when Erica's adult novel, American Sybil comes out in the spring. Until then, I hope you liked this bonus episode of Black and Published. And if you want more Black and Published, head to our Instagram page. It's at Black

[00:30:38] and Published and that's BLK and Published. There I've posted a bonus clip from my interview with Erica about why both kids and adults need to know it's okay to ask for help. Make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments.

[00:30:57] I'll still highlight y'all next year, 2024, when season four of Black and Published premieres on January 16th. I'll talk to you then. Peace.