Water's at the Root with Gwendolyn Wallace and Tonya Engel

[00:00:00] What's good, family? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams, the host of Black & Published Podcast and the author of the novel The Seven Daughters of Dupree. This historical fiction novel is about the secrets kept between mothers and daughters over the course of seven generations and is told backwards in time from 1995 to 1860.

[00:00:19] I have an excerpt from the novel for you today. The audiobook is narrated by Bonnie Turpin and this scene you're about to listen to is from chapter 15 and features the character Nadia who was writing a letter detailing her fears about her pregnancy. How do you carry a child in fear? Step one, it starts with him not being here. Step two, forget the fairy tales.

[00:00:49] Step three, remember the lies. I'm going to leave my wife. I don't want to live my life without you. Step four, replay the reaction when you told him the news. What the hell you want me to do? You know I already got a ball and three chains. Step five, sing to yourself. Is my living in vain?

[00:01:18] Step six, pray. Step seven, break the news to mama. Step eight, go to church with her. Step nine, be mortified by her testimony filled with your shame.

[00:01:35] Step ten, explore all options. Keep it. Adoption? Abortion? Step eleven, make a decision. Step twelve, doubt decision. Step thirteen, repeat steps ten, eleven, and twelve until you're three months out from your due date.

[00:02:01] Step fourteen, realize it's too late. Step fifteen, try to tell him again. Step sixteen, find out he's moved. Step seventeen, make a plan. Step eighteen, doubt the plan. Step nineteen, cry uncontrollably, inconsolably, until you're out of tears.

[00:02:31] Step twenty, remember step one. He's not here. I hope you enjoyed that scene from The Seven Daughters of Dupree, narrated by Bonnie Turpin. The novel is available everywhere books are sold and in whatever format you prefer. Hardcover, e-book, audio book, and large print. So, if you can, please consider getting a copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree today.

[00:03:00] Now, let's get to the episode. I can't even tell you how many times I heard my friends and I cheered around and go, Girl, black people don't become artists. You know, like, what a hype dream. Like, dream on. What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black & Published on the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. Bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds.

[00:03:28] Today's guests are Gwendolyn Wallace and Tanya Ingle, the author and illustrator of the new children's picture book, Dancing with Water. A story about a young queer child and their love for their grandfather, the water diviner. I was really taken by a narrative of a water diviner.

[00:03:46] This Black man who realized that he had this gift from the ancestors to feel and sense water underground and dig wells to bring fresh water up for his community. And I thought, what a lovely story and tradition to pass on to children, especially at a time of climate crisis and especially at a time when Black people in the South are facing so much environmental racism.

[00:04:11] Dancing with Water is Gwendolyn's third picture book and it comes at the same time that she's getting her PhD in the history of science. Why she believes stories are truly born at the intersection of science and the humanities. Plus, why Tanya and Gwendolyn believe children's literature is a way to preserve Black traditions and interrupt the assumed inevitability of losing ancestral art forms.

[00:04:38] And the personal experiences Gwendolyn and Tanya both brought to this project, especially when centering a non-binary child as their book's main character. That and more is next when Black and Published continues. Gwendolyn, when did you know that you were a writer? I went through many, many stages of uncertainty about writing and my relationship with writing throughout my life.

[00:05:06] But I knew I was a storyteller from a very young age and my parents really fostered that. My parents would put me to bed and tell me bedtime stories. My favorite game as a young kid was lining up all my stuffed animals and creating these grand scenes and stories for them. And that was always really important to me. And I remember writing my first story, ooh, probably like first or second grade. I remember my mom got me a composition book and I was trying to fill it up.

[00:05:34] And I remember I got like three composition books into this story. And one of our family friends was helping me type it up. And it was about this girl who found a dragon one day. And they went on an adventure trying to bring the dragon back home. And that to me was like my first moment where I just thought to myself, oh my gosh, I love writing. I love words. I love storytelling. And I think I really kept that up. I found a deep love for poetry in middle school. And then I got to high school. I went to boarding school.

[00:06:04] And I found a love for math and science. And I very much, I think, fell for the trap that you have to pick between STEM and the humanities. And I said, oh, okay, well, I picked STEM. It was what was most interesting to me at the moment in high school. And I did not really write creatively for all of high school. And I didn't, again, until my senior year of college. Tanya, when did you know that you wanted to be an artist? I didn't know there was such a thing at the time, but I was about five years old.

[00:06:33] And then I was in kindergarten. And I just remember my dad getting notices from my kindergarten teacher that I wouldn't stop craft hour when craft hour was over. Like they would have to drag me screaming and kicking away from the art supplies. And he was like, wow, maybe I have myself a little artist on my hands. And he went out and bought me materials. And he saw me tracing cartoons at home and helping my favorite little Bugs Bunny cartoons and getting the figures almost perfect at five.

[00:07:03] But after that, he was like, oh, I'm investing in this. So I guess I was five years old. But I really started concentrating on it. After high school, I got a job at an art supply store. And that for the first time ever, this was in Houston, Texas, I started meeting other Black artists. I didn't even know there was such a thing. And that's like the actual true seed in me becoming me.

[00:07:31] Gwendolyn, what do you think of the push to include the A for arts into STEM to make it STEAM? And letting young people know that they don't have to choose between the sciences or mathematics and their love for the arts. I'm not a teacher, so I can't speak to necessarily the curricular implications of including the A in STEAM for sure. But what's funny is now I'm getting my Ph.D. and I'm a historian of science. So I'm living proof that you don't have to choose.

[00:07:59] And I think the most generative questions and the most urgent questions come from the intersection of STEM and the humanities. And so I think it's really important to incorporate both into the curriculum and incorporate the intersections of both into the curriculum, which I think is a really important lesson of this book, Dancing with Water. And I hope that it's used in both science and history classrooms. And that's something that I'm really passionate about and I really want to see. And I know that I want a big part of my academic career to be public history of science education, especially for youth,

[00:08:29] because I think the medical and science humanities are so important. Tanya, what did it mean for you to be so fully embraced by your father and later your community in Houston as an artist as you were growing up? I felt very lucky and very blessed because in my immediate surroundings, it wasn't taken very seriously. I can't even tell you how many times I heard my friends and I cheered around and go, yeah, black people don't become artists.

[00:08:56] You know, like what a hype dream, like dream on. And without that close-knit community around me, I don't think I've ever dreamt of it happening. It was already hard enough throughout the system, not getting my dreams watched on a regular basis. It was something that I had to have some within to grow, I feel like.

[00:09:20] And the aid of my father in buying very expensive material during a time where we really didn't have a whole lot of spare money, sort of things like that. It was huge and aiding that, like, oh, if he believes in me enough to take a little saving and invest in anything, then I better believe in me too. So I just kept growing and exploring. He and my mom would put me in summer programs at the museum. I would literally be the only brown place in the entire building at the time throughout the summer.

[00:09:49] And I would sit there and learn sculpting when my peers were, you know, running the streets. You know, that part of the summer. It was really a grand childhood. That's beautiful. So this question is for both of you, and I'll start with Gwendolyn. When did you begin to really go after the dream of writing? And Gwendolyn specifically, why for children? I got into publishing and writing children's books in a really, really unconventional way.

[00:10:16] It wasn't necessarily a dream that I set out and chased, but I started writing children's books in the spring of 2020. After I had come home from studying abroad because of COVID, my study abroad trip had to end early, and we all got sent home. And many people on my trip, me included, got COVID. I got really, really, really sick and am still facing many of the repercussions of that and still dealing with many symptoms today.

[00:10:44] And I was back in my childhood bedroom. And so I think I just had a time to be still and reflect on my childhood in a way that I hadn't before. And the semester before, I had taken an early childhood education course as an elective. So I was in my childhood bedroom, spring 2020, very sick, thinking about my childhood and also thinking about the semester I just spent working in a kindergarten classroom because that was part of the course. And a big part of my job was reading a lot of children's picture books, of course, for story time.

[00:11:14] And I had never really critically explored that genre since I was a kid. And in reading them, I thought, wow, you know, what an amazing vehicle to impart lessons, to begin a line of questioning, to open children's eyes to different experiences. And I saw so many conversations that the kids were having in the classroom that weren't reflected in children's books. And so it was a moment of saying, you know, I really feel like there's a gap here

[00:11:41] and a gap that maybe I could fill with my experiences and my knowledge as somebody who is studying history, especially Black history, and also cares really deeply about children, childhood, and how to teach children accurate and inclusive histories. So I wrote a first draft of a picture book and I didn't really think it was going to go anywhere. I thought this was just a fun activity to fill time as I was recovering. And then we got to about summer 2020.

[00:12:09] Like many people, I was gripped and constantly attached to my phone and the news, watching so many protests against police brutality and racial injustice. And publishing, like many other industries, I think had a moment of wanting to respond to this. And I actually saw a tweet from an editor offering to look over the manuscript of any Black unagented children's book writers. And so I shot her an email. I said, I wrote this.

[00:12:36] I don't know anything about formatting or how to write a children's book, but I would love some feedback. And about a month later, she replied to me and said, sorry for taking so long. I was talking with my finance department because we actually want to publish this book and offer you a contract. And that book became The Light She Feels Inside. And then it was this editor who connected me to my amazing, incredible agent, Wendy. I kind of did it backward where I connected with this editor and had a contract before I had an agent. And it wasn't until I had my agent and signed that contract that I was like, oh, all of a sudden I'm a children's book author.

[00:13:08] That's beautiful. Tanya, how did your journey through art go? As a kid, my mom and dad took me to the library. And we spent a lot of time, like in the summers throughout the year, sitting in the library. And I would just sit in a pile of children's books and try and read every single one of them. Like I was deeply inspired by children's books. And I think that may have been where the art interests began.

[00:13:35] And it was interesting how the words were turned with images. Like they needed each other in order to become that book. And I just love how every author, every illustrator had a different way of telling their story. How unique each of them were. And I was just involved. But later in life, I was focused more on fine art. I've been painting for over 30 years. Like I would say the first time I picked up a paintbrush, I was 19, right after.

[00:14:06] Before that, I was sketching. I was afraid of paint, especially oil paint. So I tried to stick to watercolors and pencils, which were more easy to control. But after high school, after entering the art supply store and working there and having access to all these different materials, I felt more free to explore every possibility and materials that I could use.

[00:14:31] And as I started exploring, I learned that I happened to be really great at figures. It was around that time that I actually wrote Meals 3, my first children's book myself. But no one has ever seen it. Not the people closest to me because it wasn't material that anybody would be excited about like I was. But I just kept exploring the fine art aspect of me, spinning a lot of time in museums, going to shows.

[00:14:59] Starting to apply to art shows and show myself the first time. And the first time I actually showed my work in a great show, I actually won that competition. Huge deal for a 20-year-old girl. Just starting painting. That was humongous. Like, y'all can't tell me nothing now. Like, what? I'm going for it. And I did. I moved to New York in 2006.

[00:15:28] After I did a residency in Paris, I used the Paris subway as my subject matter. And I would just sit around and ride the subway and go back and forth throughout the city and sketch people secretly. And then go back to my studio and paint them. I ended up coming back to Texas and showing that series at a local gallery that allowed me to. And the first show, I sold out all the things.

[00:15:55] But once I reached New York, it was another branch of my learning experience. This is where I learned to sell my work to people and how to talk about my work out loud and explain what I'm doing, the material that I'm using. Emotionally, how I'm connected to it. What I was thinking of when I was doing it. Things that I only wrote down on paper, I was expected to speak out loud to people who were viewing my art for the first time.

[00:16:22] And I was actually selling my art on the street in Soho. And that was when I met my agent. In a random passing, someone showed up and they said, I have a friend who's an agent. Here's their number. And when I contacted that person, they said, well, we're not really accepting people right now, but I have an art show that you should enter. And when I entered that art show, I won that competition.

[00:16:48] And the agent showed up at that art show and then decided to represent on the spot. And so it's very organic the way my art career has grown. And that was in 2008. And to this day, they're still my agent, Morgan Gannon. And 2008, the very year that I met him was the first time I illustrated. Gwendolyn, this is your third children's book, third picture book.

[00:17:15] And earlier you mentioned that this kind of story was kind of born at the intersection of what you're studying and what you do. And that is the sciences and the humanities. Can you talk a bit about where Dancing with Water came from more specifically? Dancing with Water came from a lot of different places at a lot of different times. This book had been in my mind for many, many years before I actually felt brave enough to send it to my agent.

[00:17:41] But I tell people that the character actually came first who is named Kit in this book and who is Black and non-binary and uses they, them pronouns. And I had the idea for this character sitting but waiting for the right story to come along for them. And I knew that it was really important to me, especially as a queer Black woman, to have a non-binary children's book main character.

[00:18:08] And I knew that this felt even more urgent after my little sibling came out to my parents as non-binary. And I realized that looking around, there just aren't many children's books with non-binary main characters who use they, them pronouns and the ones that are often specifically about gender rather than a kid living their life. And I really wanted a book that really spoke to Black queerness and my Black queerness.

[00:18:36] And that became really, really important to me. But I didn't have a story ready for them yet. So they were kind of waiting in the wings for a story that I felt could honor and embody this character and really bring them to life. And I was reading for my academic work at the time a book called Working the Roots, Over 400 Years of Traditional African-American Healing by Michelle Lee. And in that book, I was really taken by a narrative of a water diviner. And I had never heard of this tradition.

[00:19:06] I had never read about it, but was really taken by the story of this Black man who realized that he had this gift from the ancestors to feel and sense water underground and dig wells to bring fresh water up for his community. And that story really stuck with me.

[00:19:23] And I thought, what a lovely story and tradition to pass on to children and to share with children, especially at a time of climate crisis and especially at a time when Black people in the South are facing so much environmental racism and really facing, you know, the brunt of this climate crisis alongside other Black and Brown and Indigenous people all over the world. And I really wanted to bring the story to life.

[00:19:49] I think water dividing, I did some more historical research, is not exclusive to the African-American community. But to me, it took on a really special tenor when set in a community in the Black South, like where my family's from in the Carolinas, where land is constantly being bought by developers and hotels and resorts and golf courses. And water is becoming a really urgent issue for communities that used to rely on fishing and water for a lot of spiritual tradition.

[00:20:16] And I knew that this was the perfect story for the character that would become Kit just because of the ways that Black queer writers have written about their queerness alongside the environment and especially alongside water. And so to me, it was just the perfect match. I really felt that this was the story for this character and I decided to bring it to life. And then Tanya took it in directions and was a beauty I could not have even like fathomed or imagined.

[00:20:41] Tanya, how did you come on to this project and what did it mean to you to illustrate this story? This project came to me at a time when a lot of stories were coming down all at once. I don't know what was going on. It was like the lottery. I mean, well, I'm seriously and I had the opportunity to select which ones I wanted to view. And this was first and foremost to me. It felt like, oh, this is so close at home. There's so many things that touched my heart and felt so confused.

[00:21:11] I raised a child. They were four. And they told me they were a boy when they were four. And I was like, all right then. And everyone supported them. And so I felt like seeing Naima through kids. And there was the grandfather who was just like, I could see his face throughout reading the story for the first time. He was that character. He learned how to water divine living in Louisiana from our Indian ancestors.

[00:21:40] We have a lot of background there. And it's still close to the surface in places like Louisiana. And they were still practicing the art of water divining when my grandfather was growing up. And that was one of his side jobs to go and find water. When he, you know, when he moved to Texas, he got a little bit of it, but he ended up doing other work. But as we were growing up and he was telling the stories of how he was able to do this period, we had a hard time understanding how on earth that can work.

[00:22:11] Like, what? You found water with a stick? Okay, grandpa, another tall tale. Yeah. But in further investigation, it was a real thing. And the places where we spent our summers looked a lot like when you open the look, those, the pages of that book. You know, with the community being really close to Ned and being sort of a rural setting and the community leaning on each other in the way that the community did in this book. It just felt, everything felt right.

[00:22:39] And it had to be me. And I had to do it justice. It's how close I felt to every portion of this story. It seems like a perfect match between author and illustrator and story. So without further ado, Gwendolyn, can you read something from Dancing with Water so I can ask more questions about this beautiful, beautiful book? Yes, I will find a section to read.

[00:23:02] Dancing with Water, written by Gwendolyn Wallace and illustrated by Tanya Ingle, is a children's picture book about a young non-binary child named Kit who goes along with their grandfather to pull up water from the ground. Over the course of the story, readers learn not just about the ancestral art of water divining, but also about the precarity of some communities' access to a vital human resource. Here's Gwen.

[00:23:29] I think I'm just going to read the first few pages, which I think sets the scene. And maybe for those who don't know about the traditions of water divining, I think maybe gives a little bit more. Kit's grandfather is magic. He can feel weather in his bones, hear Kit's footsteps no matter how hard they try to creep up on him. And he seems to know all the people in town. But the most magical thing about Kit's grandfather is that he can dance with water.

[00:23:57] Once Kit was big enough to ride in Grandpa's truck, they started going with him to dig wells for people all over town. The wells brought clean water from the ground that people could use to cook and drink and wash and water plant. Kit would watch Grandpa get out of his truck and wander through a yard with his eyes closed, holding nothing but a tree branch in his hand.

[00:24:21] Grandpa danced over the land, swaying and spinning and swinging his branch as his dark, dark skin sparkled in the sunlight. After digging a small hole and setting up the well, Grandpa would lean back and wait and wait and wait. Thank you. What I noticed as you were reading, Tanya was opening the book and flipping to the pages. The abundant use of the color blue. And so I want to start with you, Tanya.

[00:24:51] I know you said you were right by the ocean. The ocean is known for the color blue. We're also talking about water. Gwendolyn, your dedication is to the ancestors in part. And so and then there's many uses of the color blue in African traditions, African-American traditions, spiritual traditions. No matter what religion you practice, but also specifically thinking about African traditional religions.

[00:25:13] Tanya, was all of that in your mind as you came to illustrate this book with those brilliant, brilliant blues from the water to the truck to some of the houses in the neighborhood? Whenever I do a book, I do a lot of research. And when I was researching images of the South, pick up trucks in this typical shade of blue. And my grandfather had a truck that, exactly that truck. He tooled around town and for years.

[00:25:40] When you see those colors swirling around his personality, I was thinking about the auras that re-exude. And the colors that those auras might be if you were my grandfather, you know, like the those purples and those blues represented something. Like the purple was his royalty in our heritage. And the blue was his inner strength to me, like very masculine but quiet figure.

[00:26:09] Those are there often, but it just perfect color coincides with some of the shades of water. And there's a particular scene where Kit is coming back to their faith in what they're doing. Where the colors are exuding from their head. And that was what I had in mind too. Like mixing those auras and that strength. That's it. And the water and the movement of it outward and upward. That was very powerful.

[00:26:37] And I definitely wanted to create an emotion. Those swirlings of colors. Gwendolyn, what is the significance of water to the Black queer community? I have learned so much and I think I've drawn so much of my own beliefs and values and history from Black feminist writers. Like Audre Lorde, like June Jordan, like Gwendolyn Brooks, who is my namesake.

[00:27:01] And all of them, I think, have really beautiful pieces about water and how connected they feel to the water. Especially Audre Lorde has beautiful pieces about water as she is going through her cancer journey. And thinking about the fluidity of her body, of her gender, of her sexuality, of her community, of connection with the ancestors. And I think that Black and Indigenous queer people have always really seen themselves in water.

[00:27:30] Have really felt connected to water and to bodies of water. I know that's certainly a connection that I feel. And that history was really important to me. You know, kids might not get that in this book necessarily. But I feel that finding strength in something that is so fluid, that is ever moving, that is so life-giving, is a connection to queerness that the kids who read this keep with them in their heart.

[00:27:54] Part of the story in this book is understanding that water is a resource, but it can become scarce because it is finite. Right. There's a line in Camille Dungy's memoir, Soil, a story of a Black Mother's Garden, where she says something like, you know, she learned living in California that God isn't making any more water and also that he's not making any more land. Like, what we have is what we got.

[00:28:20] And you talked earlier about Gwendolyn specifically, your family roots in South Carolina, where the coast is all being built up by major developments that makes water scarce. But then there's also the coming, perhaps, AI apocalypse because of how much water that technology and those supercomputers require.

[00:28:39] And the places where they're being planned, such as Memphis, would only continue to tap the natural resources of water and then drain them from the very communities that have already experienced so much intentional disinvestment and strategic disenfranchisement in resources and finances. And now in their environment.

[00:29:00] And writing this picture book, was all of that in your mind about shedding light, especially with your author's note at the end, about shedding light on the necessity to protect not only the water itself, but those who can divine from it and commune with it in their spirit ways? Yeah, absolutely. All of that was in the book. Now, I don't think at the time I knew about AI data centers, but my PhD is in science and technology studies and the history of science.

[00:29:27] And so I have been reading a lot about AI data centers and their location and their necessity to use not just water, but only potable water. So they're drawing directly from the drinking sources of these places. Not only that, but including the noise pollution, the air pollution, the physical space that they take up, their campuses of land. And so all of that comes from a very long history of environmental racism. And that was all on my mind.

[00:29:54] I hope that this book can do a number of things for the children reading it. I think, one, to help them think about their connection with water and especially what they feel in their body when they see water, when they sit near water and really begin to make that body spirit connection to water and begin to notice that. Because I think that as an adult learning how to connect with the environment, whether it's the soil in my garden or a river, has been so grounding for me personally.

[00:30:22] I also hope that children get to know a little bit more. And I hope that teachers encourage them to find out more information about the bodies of water around them. You know, a lot of people don't know where their water comes from. You know, the name of the rivers or lakes that they live near, the way that they flow into each other and into oceans. And I hope that this book can start a larger conversation about, yeah, where does water come from? Where does the water that I use to bathe and drink, where is that even coming from?

[00:30:51] I think that was something that I wasn't learning about. And if it's not a water divider, who is making that possible for me to open a tap and get water? Which is why I said at the beginning that I do hope that this book is not just read alouds in between, you know, recess or classes, but also in science curriculums. And then I think, lastly, to think, yeah, really critically about the climate crisis, about the ways that water are used and also different ways to know water.

[00:31:16] I think one of the things that frustrates me most about conversations with AI or technologies that are very strategically being used to harm Black communities is the way that people kind of talk about the inevitability of their coming and their takeover. And the inevitability of losing these traditions and these other ways of knowing the world. And so this to me was a saying that this practice is important. It's important to remember it.

[00:31:42] And it's important for students to learn about just other ways of knowing the world that aren't the ones that they learn in science class. And it's important to incorporate other cultural ways of doing science and knowing the environment and sensing in science curriculum. So that this kind of tech that has such horrible effects on Black and Indigenous people all over the world, people don't just see it as something they need to succumb to. Tanya, you said that, you know, your grandfather was a water diviner.

[00:32:10] Seeing what's happening to the environment. We just passed the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. And how water is both resource and weapon sometimes. And thinking about how the tradition has been passed down in your family. What is it that you want people to take away from this book when they look at your illustrations of this environment and this tradition that you know so well?

[00:32:35] And what people to take away from it, number one, the power that we have within us and the energy that we have intrinsically natural gift of connecting with the earth in such a way that you can be guided by it and you can connect with and find water. Like, that's truly powerful. These types of traditions are quickly becoming a thing of the past because people are not even aware of their own energy and strength.

[00:33:03] And if we could bring back some of that, perhaps we wouldn't be giving so much strength to these industries that are taking over so much and taking away a lot of that power and connection. I love how this book shows the cause and effect of what can happen when things go in that wrong direction. And people forget about the cause and effect of the church and how it's affecting the earth and how it can permanently change the way we know society. We look at that dark place.

[00:33:31] We're already there. I've gone to my favorite watering hole that I used to go and meditate by for years in Austin. And I've gone there for the last four years and it's completely dried up and shriveled. Like, there's not a drop of water that runs through there anymore. And I know that's not the opportunity where that's happening. The cause and effect is right there to see if you take a look. And if something doesn't happen in the world, it's going to get worse, not better.

[00:33:59] So I hope that this new book can affect our next generation to take a closer look at those things and not become complacent like we are now and just let it keep happening. Gwendolyn, we were talking earlier about looking at children's books and reading them and seeing how much of a space it was to express such complex ideas in a way that they are accessible to any and everyone.

[00:34:27] What does it mean to you all to be a part of that tradition where you are taking these what could be highly politicized topics from queerness to environmental racism to the necessity, scarcity and the resource of water and creating a story about it that feels good but doesn't shy away from the harm that can be done? What does it mean to you to be a part of that kind of tradition? I'll start with Gwendolyn.

[00:34:55] As an author, I'm always asked to talk a lot about book banning and especially the attack on books about marginalized communities. And something I think about a lot is the violence of that. And I like to call it a violence. It isn't just not inclusive or like unkind. It's a violence against children.

[00:35:14] And I feel so proud to be part of a really long and rich legacy in the Black radical tradition of seeing the power of children, seeing the power of their imagination and the power of their thoughts to change us. Seeing kids as teachers for us just as much as we as adults are for them. I know that there is a age appropriate way to explain any topic to children. You have to find it.

[00:35:40] And I think the issue is not children finding things that are scary or that are disturbing or that they don't understand. The issue comes when they don't have an adult who is a safe place to talk about those things and process them with. And so I hope that books like these and so many children's books, you know, can be that jumping off point for adults to maybe introduce kids to some topics that might be hard that are really scary and really disturbing and can just become a jumping off point for those questions.

[00:36:06] I talk to a lot of teachers who often say, how can I bring conversations about racism or gender into my classroom? And I always say they're already there. You're not bringing anything in that isn't already there. Kids aren't seeing the world. They're thinking about it. The question isn't about whether you're bringing it in. The question is if you're going to talk about it. And so for me, kids know of the climate crisis, right? They are experiencing water. They are experiencing drought. They are experiencing high temperatures. They are experiencing, like Tanya said, water holes drying up.

[00:36:36] The lake that I learned to ice skate on hasn't frozen over for the last two or three years. And so kids are experiencing these things and they have questions. And to me, it's us turning to ourselves as adults and saying, are we going to be a safe place for children to learn about these things and to feel like they can resist the powers that be? That's really the question in my head. And I'm really proud to be part of a legacy that says, yes, kids are crucial to our social mood.

[00:37:00] And I have hope in a different future because I spend so much time with kids and I see their ideas and I want to fight for a future for them. Mm hmm. So, yeah. Yeah. I'm just I feel so proud to be part of this tradition that really sees children as people, not possessions. And I am always amazed by what I learned from children when I read my books to them. That's awesome, Tanya.

[00:37:25] I think storytelling, first of all, is as a tradition has been a really integral part in all history, but especially in Africa. And I. What's going on, family? This is Derek Young. And Ramonda Young. Owners of both Mahogany Books and the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. We really want to thank each and every one of you for listening to this episode. And if you enjoyed what you just heard, drop us a review and rate us on whatever platform you download podcasts on.

[00:37:55] We truly appreciate each and every one of you for supporting us and making us your go to for black books. And we look forward to connecting with you all sometime in the future. Thank you again, fam. And always remember, black books matter.