Scholastic

I hope through my new book young readers will learn that there is a special book out there for everyone. Sometimes it can be hard to find, and sometimes the best stories are found within ourselves.

Dad celebrated Diwali with gusto, in his usual lavish, over-the-top way. He would buy more fireworks than anybody else in the neighborhood. All the kids in the neighborhood would gather on the sidewalk in front of our apartment and watch the dazzling displays shoot up into the dark Bombay sky.

For the most part, Americans had embraced the rich culture and traditions of their neighbors, especially their food. However, old fears and prejudices lingered and festered, as was revealed during the 2016 election.

Is a lyrical, heart-lifting love letter to Black and brown children everywhere, reminding them of how much they matter, that they have always mattered, and they always will.

My greatest hope is that kids who read my book develop empathy for people who may not look, sound, or worship the way they do. I hope it causes kids to question the world around them, to research issues they may not understand, and to grow into informed citizens, the kind our country desperately needs.

I know I can't go back and tell my 17-year-old self to be nicer to us. I can’t tell him to only try to change the way he looks if it comes from a place of love. I can't change the way I treated myself for years. But I've written a little story that has helped me forgive myself. And, hopefully, it will help other young readers as well.

When the school year began I was often the only Black child in my classes and that's where I began to hear the other kind of stories. Sad, bad stories about people who looked like me. I was struck by how feverishly my new teachers and classmates believed in these narratives. It was then that I understood how words and stories could be used to wound.

I hope this story will expose Betita’s humanity, because her yearnings for happiness and love are universal, but further still, I hope it teaches children how one child was able to use her voice, her art and poetry, to not only endure but to rise above and change a horrific and harmful circumstance.

Black kids deserve to see themselves as the stars of the story, and it’s just as important for other readers to see Black kids as the stars of the story as well.