Episode 135: Celebrating Black History and Futures Through Storytelling

In this episode, host Dr. Almitra Berry welcomes author Tonya Duncan Ellis, the brilliant creator of the bestselling Sophie Washington book series and the picture book "They Built Me for Freedom." Tonya shares how her personal experiences and the rich history of Black culture inspired her work, which celebrates identity and engages young readers in meaningful conversations about freedom. The discussion explores the vital role of storytelling in shaping our understanding of America's Black history and the importance of representation for children of color.

Tonya Duncan Ellis is author of the bestselling Sophie Washington children's chapter book series and THEY BUILT ME FOR FREEDOM (Balzer + Bray an imprint of Harper Collins, 2024) She is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), the Authors Guild, Black Creators in KidLit, and the Brown Bookshelf's Highlights Foundation-sponsored, Amplify Black Stories storyteller cohort. In 2021, she won the Austin SCBWI Cynthia Leitich Smith Writing Mentor Award. She is a 2022 winner of SCBWI's Independently Published Book Launch Marketing Grant. Represented by Sara Megibow of KT Literary, Tonya holds an MBA degree from Washington University in St. Louis and a BA degree in French from Centre College of Kentucky. She lives in Houston, Texas and is married with three children.

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Transcript

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If you're a parent, teacher or school leader and you're sick and tired of the frustration, anger and unfair treatment of children at high risk in our public schools, then perhaps it's time for all of us to do something about it. In this podcast, Dr amitra Berry brings you tips, tools, strategies and tactics to build successful solutions while touching, moving and inspiring all of us to transform our schools so that every child thrives. Here's your host, Dr Bay, as we kick off black history and black futures month, I'm excited to welcome Tonya Duncan Ellis, the brilliant author of The Best Selling Sophie Washington series and her latest picture book they built me for freedom. Tanya's work not only celebrates the rich history of black culture, but also engages young readers in meaningful conversations about freedom and identity. So I'm glad you're here today to join us as we explore an inspiring journey and the vital role of storytelling in shaping our understanding and the truth of America's Black history. Tanya, thanks so much for joining me today. Well, thank you so much for having me. Dr Bailey, I'm excited to be here. I am excited about books that tell the truth of the what I call, or what's called, the hard history that is often not shared. So I want to ask you first, how did this come about? Was there a a moment in your life that influenced your work? That's a very good question. With the particular book they built me for freedom, is that what you're referring to? Yeah, yes. It came about when I took what I call an author's field trip. I periodically visit historical spaces in different places, just for inspiration. And this was before Juneteenth was a national holiday. I decided I had read something about emancipation park in the online, and I said, let me take a visit to this place. I've passed it many times on my way to church and going through the third ward in Houston. So I went down to the park, and I actually got chills when I was walking on the ground, imagining my ancestors walking those grounds and celebrating their freedom. And I looked at the sign emancipation park. There's a sign there indicating, and some of the lines from the book came to me when I was there. And I this need people need to know about this place. So I immediately went home, started doing research and wrote some of the first drafts of my book. They built me for freedom. Wow, that is, yeah, I know when I visited emancipation Park. And you know, for listeners who've never been to Houston, if you do come to Houston, please go just walking those grounds and understanding the history of that neighborhood and the things that happen here in what we you know, what we call Houston, as far as the history of black people post emancipation. And if you can do it on Juneteenth, come Juneteenth week, and spend the week between Galveston and Houston just exploring that history, it will give you chills, maybe make you cry, but definitely it it does something to our souls, I think when we walk in those spaces, right? And then it was interesting to me that you called it hard history, because for me, I really thought of it as a place of joy, and looking at the beautiful art and just thinking about people celebrating their freedom and their rights in that space, yeah, today, yeah. So hard history, not my term, really, is about the history that, basically that white people find hard to accept, wrap their arms around and incorporate into American history as it's taught in school. So we keep that label hard history to remind you, not you, but to remind folks that this may not be easy for you to sit with, but there's a reason that you need to sit with it. There's a reason that our children need to learn this history and understand that it is part of America's history, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you. And I like to remind folks that just because this makes you uncomfortable, or as this makes you uncomfortable, think about how uncomfortable children of color are, whether they're black children or indigenous children, Chinese children, as their history in this country is ignored, erased, whitewashed, and so you know, for you to be bringing the words and the storytelling of your characters to life is just, I think it's critical, especially for teachers. Teachers, if you have budget, you know classroom budget, these are books you can buy for your classroom. Them, and certainly parents, and we're going to make sure that they have a link. There is a link to your website down in the notes, so folks can click on that and go right, right to your work. I see educational equity in a lot of things and in the themes of your book, the idea that it's not just a story, but that everybody's story should have weight to it. Did any of that occur to you as you were writing, or was this really just a personal inspiration and journey? Well, one inspiration for writing this book, I read a lot of other authors, children's authors, works, and one author I greatly admire is Kelly Starling Lyons. She writes one of the books that she wrote that inspired me to start writing picture books was called, it's called sing a song, and it tells the history of the Negro national anthem, and it goes through time from the conception of the song. It talks about black history and American history. And I was so moved when I heard her read the book aloud at a children's literature conference. It was via zoom. We were all crying. Everyone there. There was not a dry eye there. And I said, I want to write impactful works like this. So that was kind of what led me to want to write a book like they built me for freedom, because it made me proud to be an African American woman. It made me proud of my history and my culture, and it was teaching everyone there, you know, these struggles that African Americans face through the journey she takes us on in that particular book. So I sought to write something like that, and that was when I went to the park. I'm like, This is a story that needs to be told. Yeah. So, you know, here in Texas, there are book bands. They are all over the country even, there are a few districts, even in California, that has banned some books. So I don't know if you've been notified that your books are banned anywhere, but my I would just venture a guess that if they have seen them somewhere where they're doing this, they're probably you might be on the list. How can educators classroom teachers, how can they use your books to promote inclusivity and cultural awareness, even if they are somewhere where maybe there might be some political pushback? Well, to fight the pushback, I'm part of some author groups who work to suppress book banning, and they challenge all of us to write our politicians, be involved in school board meetings and events so that we can be a part of the solution. I've actually last year here in Houston, they turned school libraries into detention centers and laid off a lot of librarians, so I was on the front lines protesting those activities, but just making parents aware of what's going on, sharing stories. And I know a lot of them are in fear for their jobs, you know, so it's really difficult for them. I urge parents to support the librarians and educators and just stay aware of what's going on, because these are small groups. Any of the books, the book I just mentioned sing a song, it's been on banned list. There are books. There's one called Little leaders, which just shows historical figures like Mae Jemison, Oprah Winfrey, even it's been banned. And it's any of these books that are affirming children of color and of different races, they're just sweeping through and banning them. I urge teachers to make parents aware and enlist their support, because it's hard for them. A lot of them are on the front lines, and their jobs are in danger. Yeah, so because it's hard for them, there's even a school, a title, one school, that I volunteer at in Galveston. And you know, the librarian, she doesn't have the ability to bring forth some of these books, certain books, without approval for so the main thing is kind of make parents aware. A lot of them are not even aware of what's going on. I've done events in Katy, Texas, which is kind of like a hotbed of book banning, and parents were actually crying tears. We brought in Jerry craft, who wrote a book called new kid that just talks about African American children in a private school, and they were not aware of what's going on. So I think helping get awareness out so that people even realize what's going on. Because many of the books that have been banned, they all they do is share affirming stories about people loving themselves. They're not really controversial, in my mind, and it's kind of small. All political groups coming in, going into communities where many of them don't even live, and getting these campaigns going to ban books. Yeah, one of those groups is moms for liberty, and I've done several episodes where I address who they are and what they're doing. And so, you know, I'm glad that you are actively involved in this, and can can share some insights on what folks can do. We have to recognize that this, this, this happens because they have organized around just removing books. I mean, if they can, they have removed books about Rosa Parks, about Martin Luther King. So even even the black figures that they have historically embraced, they still don't want those books in in the classroom, so parents need to be involved. These, these groups are putting forward people to run for school board and a lot of times, school board elections are won by, you know, a 50, 100 votes. You know, school board elections don't turn people out by the 10s of 1000s, and if we're not paying attention, these are the people they are putting into school boards, and they're the ones that are approving these book bans. So, so important for parents to be involved there. Tell us a little bit about the Sophie Washington series. So the Sophie Washington series is tween chapter book series. Sophie is 11 years old. There are 13 books in the series, and each book has Sophie and friends dealing with different problems that tweens face, like making friends, managing social media and video game play, standing up to bullies, just learning different things that tweens talking about different issues they experience, and they learn about entrepreneurship and different things in each book. So it's been it's been a fun ride. I self published the series, and I've actually sold over 175,000 copies in scholastic bought the rights to my book Sophie Washington, code one in 2021 for a STEM program, which is kind of funny, because I am not like a heavy tech person, but I kids love video games. I have two sons and a daughter, and I would became just fascinated with coding because I thought, well, as much as you love to play on these games, maybe you can something useful from it. Wrote a book about coding. So scholastic approached me and put it in a STEM program they have for girls. That is awesome, and I had not made that connection to stem. So, you know, I do a little bit of work with with STEM, and I'm going to make sure that I get a copy of that one, and that I bring that forward when I'm speaking to especially to black stem audiences. You know, there's a whole black educators of stem that we want to make sure and please bug me, I want to make that connection for you, not just in person, but we can get that done right away. That's really important, as well as the there are some black STEM schools here in Houston, and I want to make sure you know that you connect with those people there. So Tonya, stay on me, and we'll make sure that we make those connections for you. I love that. And the tween space is so I did an episode A while back with someone about just navigating that tween space as a parent. So for children of color who are tweens, to have a series of books that that are focused and built around people who look like them, right? So critical, yeah. And I have many readers who have identified with Sophie. They dress as her. They've sent me pictures. I have a book Sophie, Washington hurricane, where she wears a pink cowboy hat and a Houston strong shirt, and I've had kids dressed like that. I have a book called the snitch, and it has a pose with Sophie putting her finger over her mouth like because she's saying she has a secret. And I've had a lot of kids dressed up as that. So that's been a lot of fun, and it's a relatable series that will keep children engaged in reading. And I know my kids, my youngest, especially he didn't like to read, and that was one of my inspirations for the series, because any of the books were not relatable to him that I would share. And so this is something a lot of parents have written me letters thanking me, because these are books that their children can relate to and keep them excited about reading that is so interesting. You know, I thought, as you were talking about that, I'm thinking, I don't have my kids are adults. I have a grandson, but he's a junior in or, yeah, God, he's a junior in high school this year. But I do have two great nieces who are still in that tween space. So I think when we finish up today, I'll be ordering the whole series for the two of them, twin grand twin grand nieces. I think that that those stories will be just inspiring and perfect for them. A lot of times, folks don't realize the power of representation. Okay, and seeing yourself doing positive things, portrayed in a positive manner, and dealing with the issues that that every child, or all children, many children, deal with, it is one of the four indicators of equity that I have in my work. Is seeing yourself, whether it's in the context of regular like science or math curriculum or literature, whatever it is our children need to see themselves. So bringing these books forward is critical, and I you know, if I can share, and I'd love your feedback and what your feelings are this whole effort to ban books of diverse characters, not even historical characters, just diverse characters. To me, seems to be a concerted effort to make sure that a black and brown cast that is politically oppressed, that is economically oppressed, that is educationally oppressed, is is built and maintained in this country to the benefit a bunch of white right wing zealots. I'm just gonna say it as plainly as I can, going back to as as close as they can, to something that is akin to slavery without it actually being enslaving people, but creating that, that that group of people that are oppressed. It's really sad, because when you think of Frederick Douglass as saying, when you learn to read, you'll be forever, be forever free, right? And it's kind of it's hurting people of all races, not just people of color, when our children are ignorant of American history and we're trying to hide a facet of American history. And again, talking about books being relatable, I have there was a child, a little girl who's a friend of my youngest son and the teacher, they all had high reading levels. She provided her role of thunder. Hear My Cry when she was very great, which I love that book. It's one of my favorite books. But the little girl was crying because she's a Suburban Girl in Houston, the only book they just saw black people on the cover and give her the story, which has a lot of trauma It does, yeah, terrible relating to it, because that's not her lived experience. And so when you look through, especially when I grew up, there weren't books that featured black girls, little black American girls going through just daily things. Most of them were trauma stories, either they were inner city with all kinds of struggles and trauma, or slaves or share croppers and things like that. So it's important for our children to see themselves in all situations, and that history is important. We need to keep that history. We need to know our history, but we also need books that our children can relate to in the modern times as well. Yeah, you know, as you said that, I thought back to when I was a child. I did have a couple of amazing teachers, and I had my own personal trauma that I lived through. I saw my father was killed when I was seven. I was there, right? So I had a couple, you know, one in particular, and I talk about her all the time. She's my third grade teacher, Mrs. Gowdy. The year after all of that trauma was when I had her and she fed me books that had black and that was a white woman. She gave me books constantly I was well above grade level, so these books where I could see positive images of black people, and in particular, of black men. But as I you were talking, I'm thinking, what was the first book I read about someone black who was my age, and it was sounder, okay, right, right. So I can't even remember, it's about a dog, isn't it? It's sounder. Was the dog, but it's a black sharecropping family. Oh, right. So again, we get to that, you know, what? Are we either slaves or sharecroppers? And, well, granted, yes, I am descended from from enslaved people and sharecroppers, you know, and but still, that wasn't my lived experience, but it was the only thing I had about someone who was my age, but I was a city girl. I couldn't connect, you know, living as a sharecropper, it just it didn't relate. So I am, you know, over the moon, thrilled that your books exist. I just, you know, way, if I wanted books about people my age as a child, they were typically white. I mean, I read every Nancy, Drew book that was ever written because that was what was there. But still, there were so many things. There are so many things in that, in that series that that children of color, black children in particular, will never be able to relate to because our lived experience is so different. Yeah, my husband was sharing with me, and he loves to read, but he reads mostly historical. I. Fiction and biographies. And he said, growing up, he liked historical books because he didn't relate to the characters in most of the fictional books and things that he was in school. Yeah, they just weren't there for us. How do you approach? How do you go about some of the sensitive topics, especially in that tween space. How do you do that in a way that entertains and engages them? But at the same time as educational Can you share a secret? I don't know if there's really see, I just try to write things as they are. When I write books, I don't set out to be preachy or didactic in what I'm doing so, and there's a lot of humor in in problems. You know, that's how you know the song tears of clan, and a lot of things that our kids do are funny and entertaining. And during the time that I was writing the Sophie Washington series, as I said, I'm a three, my kids were around the ages of the characters, so just I kind of was in their their fictional books, but the situations mimic some of the things that they experienced during those times. And it was, it was just fun for me to write about these characters and create little worlds and situations for them, and I have them do things there in spelling bee, there's a holiday book they go to Costa Rica. So even though they learn lessons on being a good friend, one, they have plagiarism, one, you know, they have, it's kind of like a sitcom type where they wrap it up in the end of the story, but they have fun things too. The brother likes to play pranks on Sophie, and I've been asked to make a spin off about her little brother, Cole, because he loves to tell jokes and do little funny things throughout the book. So it's kind of a fun time. You know they're joyous fun stories, even though they do teach lessons about situations. So I don't have that gift of of creating brilliant narrative. I write expository teacher professional development books. How would when did you know that you had this gift. It started early for me, because I always loved to read, and my mom would take me to the library once a week, and I'd have a bag of books and read all those. So I've always loved to read, and in fifth grade, I won a writing competition at my school, and my teachers encouraged me. And actually, just last week, I went back to my old school and did an author visit, because I do author visits with children, so that was so cool to have that full circle moment going back to the school that I went to. So I worked also in journalism. After college, we didn't have school visits when I was growing up where I met authors that seemed kind of out of the realm of possibility for me, but I just always have loved story. I read all the time. Now I read up to 60 books a year, fiction, non fiction. I'm always reading. And when my kids were little, I would tell them bedtime stories and just make up great stories for them all the time, and they actually with the Sophie Washington series. When I started writing them, I would read them part of it for bedtime stories. Okay, let's go. Oh, well, hey. But they would be like, oh, you know, this is boring, or kids don't talk like that, and different things, so they would help me when we were writing those stories. So for parents who might be listening to this, if they have a child who likes to tell stories, we'll put it that way. Is this something you think that parents should think about early and, you know, create, help create those experiences. And for teachers, when you're you're finding that you've got a child who's a little more creative, yeah, I think you can help encourage that by my mother used to buy me diaries because she doesn't really read that much, but she always took me to the library where I could get books. So I think providing access to books giving them journals and different things to let them write that helped keep me going with my creativity and with my own kids. There are different activities here in Houston. There's something called writers in the schools, and in the summer, I my kids, actually, none of the three of them like writing that much, but I had them involved in things like that when they were younger. Okay, any others that you can suggest for parents who might be listening? I also always had them participate in the library reading, you know, the summer reading programs in bookstores and libraries where they could read and get prizes because. Reading is the key to good writing as well, because for me, it came very instinctive, even though I think I am more gifted in writing and I've just always loved it, but because I read so much, it's very easy for me to just sense how stories should be. Even before I started writing for children, I kind of had a sense of how things should be, and I love poetry and just playing with because when you're writing, even picture books, even though there's only 32 pages and from 500 to 1000 words, it's kind of like putting a puzzle together when you're trying to come up with the perfect way to tell the story, because you have to think it's going to be read aloud. There's images with the picture book, you know, with your words. So there's a lot that goes into writing a good picture book for children. Yeah, I bet I love doing read aloud for little kids. It's like when I do when I've done school visits and in my consulting work, usually it's around English language arts and reading. So my favorite thing is to get in there and be able to do circle time and read. And as a sixth grade teacher, even I did read aloud to my sixth graders, they got on the carpet and, you know, did the whole criss cross applesauce. You know, for my kids, a lot of it was because they were not reading at grade level, and so getting literature into them meant that a lot of it had to be read aloud until, you know, till they got to a point where they could really engage in grade level, appropriate Lexile level reading. But just having books in the classroom for them, even if they were, you know, four years, four or five years below grade level, they were starting to pick up books that love of literature can still be developed. Curious if you know whether or not your books are used in the Freedom Schools, the summer schools. Actually, this summer, I went to a freedom school here in Houston, and they had, like, a 60 year anniversary, and I did a reading there to Freedom School with the children, so they're going to incorporate them in to that that I was introduced to that this summer. Yeah, for those of you not familiar with freedom schools, I know I did an episode on it a while back, but I ran into someone just in the last couple of weeks that is part of the freedom schools here in Houston, and we had this conversation so it just just struck me that they should be using your books. And so if you're involved with a freedom school somewhere other than Houston, make sure you let them know about Tanya Duncan Ellis and give them a link to her website so they can check out those books. They're perfect, I think, for inspiring our children in the summer. Um, I have one last question for you, and it's one that I ask every guest. Dr Angela Davis once said, I am changing the things I cannot accept. So what is the something that you cannot accept? And how can listeners help support change in that area? Something that's troubling for me is that many of the books that I would share with my kids that featured African American characters weren't written by African American writers, and so that was disturbing to me when I looked at the statistics, and things have been moving in a different direction in recent years, the publishing industry has become more aware of this, but I urge parents, when they're looking at books, to check out who the author is, because there's so many. Even with my own youngest son, who I mentioned, doesn't like to read, didn't like to read a lot as a child, I was showing him one that had a little black boy on the cover, and I said, Oh, you love this. You'll he's playing basketball. You not to be stereotypical, but he did. And then when I saw who the author was, I'm like, This is why he doesn't relate to it. Because things in the book I read it, they were not relatable, and they put a person of color on the cover. I don't know if the author had a hand in that or not. They may not, but I've been seeing, you know, I see that a lot is kind of upsetting to me. So I encourage authors, black authors, to try to get involved in the traditional publishing space. Learn, because we have many who do self publishing, but learn that their books and their work can be included as well. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. It is something that I deal with in the work that I do with publishers in you know, the literature that they acquire is don't just tell stories of children of color. I don't care if they're black, they're Latina, indigenous. They need to be written by people of that culture, so that you're really getting an understanding of the full character and their lived experience. So thank you for that, and to continue on with that, it has changed in recent years, but I used to follow statistics in around 2020, 2021, less than half of the books children's books that featured black. Characters were written by black authors. And this was not the same. In other groups, they had up to 90% 95 but for African Americans, it was less than half of those books that starred in African American character were written by an a black author. Yeah. I remember reading that same data, yeah. So it is something that we need to do about, do something about. So if there is, let's say there's a black author who's hearing this podcast, can they contact you for partnership, for guidance, for Well, I do do consulting with authors. I do paid consulting, because I also do mentorships through different programs, like We Need Diverse Books and other organizations, so I offer mentorships through those I don't have time to answer all the quick because I lot of questions for people. But I also recommend that if they're truly interested in writing for children, they join groups like the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, which teaches you the craft of writing for children. And on my Instagram feed, at Tanya Ellis books, I have all kinds of free tips on writing for children and steps to take if you're interested in entering the traditionally published space or even self publishing. So I do, and I do provide paid mentorships and consultation as well. Okay, good. Yes, you have value. Your intellect and your knowledge has value. So make sure that you that, folks, if you're going to talk to her, recognize and respect the value that she brings. I encourage everyone within the sound of my voice to explore Tanya Duncan Ellis's incredible work and consider how her books can enrich your understanding of cultural awareness and inclusivity in education, in storytelling. Her website is Tonya Duncan ellis.com check out those latest releases. Check out the Sophie series, and remember that every story has the power to inspire change. And then join me again next episode as we continue to advocate for educational equity, let's make a difference together. Don't forget to subscribe and share, and until next time, remember, don't worry about the things you cannot change. Change the things you can no longer accept. And that's a wrap for today's episode of the 3e podcast. Now here's how you can make a real difference. First, smash that subscribe button. It's free. It's easy, just do it. Second, share the show with anyone you know who cares about education, and third, consider becoming a supporter of the show together, we're not just talking about change, we're making it happen. Make a donation today to be part of that mission and change, and I'll catch you next time you.