Stories are important no matter our age but...
...the first stories we encounter will shape us for good in ways we’ll never totally understand.
Two of my biggest values include the following:
Looking at the ordinary, the mundane, the small, and seeing an entire world of wonder and possibility.
Making room for the people who often don’t see themselves represented in certain spaces, inviting others to the table.
This year, we said goodbye to two remarkable children’s authors who embodied these two things well and did so for a long, long time. Beverly Cleary wrote books for the ones who didn’t fit in, the slightly different, the neurodiverse. Eric Carle- and I love the full quote in this drawing- wrote so that others could see the bigger world beyond the one most people take for granted.
Eric Carle & Beverly Cleary