Vashti Harrison

Vashti Harrison: The main inciting incident in Big is something that happened to me. I've talked many times about how the character doesn't have a name. She goes through a lot of the things that I went through, but she's not mean.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: It's true that the little girl in Vashti Harrison's Caldecott-winning work, Big, isn't her. And it's also true that the character looks nothing like I did as a young girl. And yet, when I read the book, even as a grown woman, I found a deep connection with her, a moment of recognition to remind me, like any good book does, that we are not alone.

Vashti Harrison: Every time I read big out of school, obviously, I'm always there to speak directly to kids and to talk to kids about the story, and I hope that they're all connecting with it. But at every single reading, there's always an adult adult woman that comes to me and says, this was my story. I needed this when I was young, and I just I wish we all knew that we were all going through the same things.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Vashti's stories show us that while our experiences may shape us, they don't have to define us. Instead, they can inspire us to create something powerful, something that brings us together and brings healing and hope to the world and to ourselves. Vashti Harrison is a New York Times bestselling author, illustrator, and filmmaker celebrated for her books for children, including Big, which earned the 2024 Caldecott Medal and Coretta Scott King Award. She also is the creator of the books Little Leaders, Little Dreamers, and Little Legends, as well as the illustrator of Lupita Nyong'o Solway and many other acclaimed works. In this episode, Vashti reflects on the role of storytelling in shaping her life and work from her childhood in only lonely Virginia, where she immersed herself in books and films and first thought of herself as a drawer, to navigating the complexities of beauty standards and body image.

And she shares about the drawing contest she entered on a whim that led to a book deal in 24 hours. My name is Jordan Lloyd Bookey, and this is The Reading Culture, a show where we speak with diverse authors about ways to build a stronger culture of reading in our communities. We dive deep into their personal experiences and inspirations. Our show is made possible by Beanstack, the leading solution for motivating students to read more. Learn more at beanstack.com, and make sure to check us out on Instagram at the reading culture pod and subscribe to our newsletter for bonus content at the reading culture pod dot com forward slash newsletter.

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So you grew up Eastern Shore of Virginia. Right?

Vashti Harrison: That's right.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Maybe we could talk about what what was the feeling of your home, your kinda like day to day life, if you're painting that picture for us?

Vashti Harrison: I think of my home life in Virginia as really quiet. I think probably because my sister was much older, I spent a lot of time by myself making things, making art, and I loved the idea of sort of uncovering secrets. So my dad would call it rambling. I would spend a lot of time rambling, like, going through closets and going through piles of junk to try to find something special, to treat it like a treasure, to make something out of it. But at the same time, my parents were New Yorkers.

They moved to Virginia. My sister was born in New York. I was the only person that was born there. So we spent a lot of time traveling and going to other places, specifically in New York City. So I think from an early age, I grew up knowing that there is a much bigger world outside of this.

And that probably led to this sort of understanding or belief system, I think, within my family that if you or even just of the time period that if you want to succeed, you have to get good grades in school and go to college and then move out of this small town. You have to get out of here to do big things. But having said all of that, I always cherish my time in Virginia. My town is called Only, and we joke it's called it's lonely only. It's very, very quiet.

We got a a stoplight after I went to college. Almost that small. But I always feel very creative when I go there. I still go there every year, and I think it's just maybe the quiet of it, the distance from everything else. It sort of feels like time stops when I go there, and I don't have to worry about other things going on.

I don't have to worry about FOMO. I can just focus on what I wanna focus on, and so I still feel very creative there. But I think early on, I knew that there were bigger places outside of Only, which definitely contributed to the way that I approached art and school and success Mhmm. As a teenager. I was home a lot, and I didn't have a big group of friends.

And I think I've always been that way, but I think it's probably because I spend a lot of time sort of, I don't know, being very internal and thinking about things and wanting to just focus on things that feel quiet. And I think no one else in my family was very creative, so I don't know if they knew how to foster that or how to even understand that. But I don't know how I would have turned out if I grew up in a big city

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Right.

Vashti Harrison: Is what I'm saying. It's very interesting. I don't know if this is a result of me living in a small town, or rather I benefited from living in a small town Oh, right. Because of my own desires to to be quiet.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: It's funny because, like, I do think of your work, especially when it's like all you, when something is all your work, I do think of it as quiet, you know, like as soft even and, I don't know, like, you wanna hold it, you know?

Vashti Harrison: I think I'm definitely learning to love that about my artwork. Someone described it to me as tender, and I was like, yeah.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I think It is tender. Yes.

Vashti Harrison: I love that, and I want to be making tender work that can be quiet. My agent said that I make lap books, the kind of books that you curl up with a kid and you read them together.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: The word tender, just when she said it, it really resonated with me because I did recently curl up and read big with my daughter. She's 12 now, and I really wish that we'd had that book when she was little. But we read it together anyways, and when we did, we both teared up and got a little emotional. For those of you who haven't read it, the book follows the story of a sweet young girl navigating societal expectations and the pressures of being labeled too big in this world. So I asked Vashti what role looks played in her life growing up.

Vashti Harrison: I am biracial. My dad is of black descent, and my mom is of Indian descent. Physiologically, my mom is a much more petite person. Everyone in her family is very petite. She's also very beautiful, and she modeled for a long time when she was young.

And we grew up with beautiful photos of her looking

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Like a model?

Vashti Harrison: Like a model, but, like, fancy wearing beautiful outfits and high heels. And and I think that sort of constant reminder that, like, there's this sort of value in presenting yourself, this value and looking good was constantly reinforced in my house. And I look back at these photos of myself as a kid, and I can see when I was very young, she was sort of dressing me up as this little doll, and we would be in, like, sort of matching fancy little church outfits. And I can kind of just see it sort of stopping as I'm getting older, and my body is changing and getting bigger. And I just remember struggling and fighting with my mom a lot about clothes, about her wanting to me to wear certain things and me not wanting to wear certain things.

I think that will be the, like, maybe the biggest lure in my family is that I struggled with, like, wanting to wear particular outfits. It was like a famous story of me being a kid going to, like, my sister's track meet, and I didn't like the dress I was wearing. And I insisted I needed to go back to my dad's van. I need to go back to the van to change. It was one of those big, like, nineties vans, so Yeah.

We have, like, a TV and stuff inside of it. Yeah. And, apparently, multiple outfits. I needed to go change, and I insisted on it. And he took he finally took me, and he missed my sister's race.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh, wow. Wait. Why did you need to change, though?

Vashti Harrison: I knew that the dress was sort of like a comfort dress. It was something that I felt more comfortable in, but I don't remember exactly what was happening with what I was currently wearing. But I know that I have comfort outfits now. I know that my brain still works that way. Like, I know that I feel comfortable in this, and I don't feel as insecure in this.

And I absolutely know that those were feelings I was building as a young person. I was learning as a young person that my body was being judged in particular outfits, and I needed to feel safer in certain ones or I could feel safer in certain ones. So these parts of, I think, my family dynamics all sort of fed into a trauma that I've been harboring for a really long time about feeling like there was something wrong with my body, and specifically coming from my mom who probably just didn't even understand that, you know, there's not one way my body could have looked like hers. I am almost a full 9 inches taller than her now. You know?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Wow. Okay. Yeah.

Vashti Harrison: Of course, I couldn't fit into whatever mold she had expected for me.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.

Vashti Harrison: And and my sister is much more petite than I am as well.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I was gonna ask about your sister right here.

Vashti Harrison: Not as petite as my mom, but definitely, I feel like, physiologically, I look more like my father's side of the family than my mom's. And so those were all things just minor things that all contributed to this extreme self consciousness that I had. And so the main inciting incident in Big is something that happened to me. I've talked many times about how the character doesn't have a name. She goes through a lot of the things that I went through, but she's not me.

But that one experience did happen, and many of the sort of functions of the other people in the book are sort of representations of my family members. So the inciting incident is that the character gets stuck in a swing on the playground, a baby swing. And she and her friends are just messing around doing what kids do, playing around on the playground, and and she gets stuck in a baby swing, and that absolutely happened to me. It happened to me on a field trip, and my mom was a chaperone. So the person that pulled me out of the swing was my mom, and the person who yelled at me and judged me was my mom.

So those things are all sort of, I think, just unresolved for a really long time. Still trying to heal from it.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I'm very sorry that happened to you on the playground. You know, it's just man, look what you got to make for people now. You know? Yeah.

Vashti Harrison: I mean Mhmm. Every time I read big out of school, obviously, I'm always there to speak directly to kids and to talk to kids about the story, and I hope that they're all connecting with it. But at every single reading, there's always an adult woman that comes to me and says, this was my story. Mhmm. I needed this Yeah.

When I was young. And I just I wish we all knew that we were all going through the same things.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Was writing big for you, like, as cathartic an experience as one might imagine it would have been if that was your own mom, like, to create those pages and to

Vashti Harrison: It was. It was the hardest thing ever made because I think there was so much unpacked, unaddressed trauma that I was sort of trying to put into this book on top of trying to make something that still functioned as a children's picture book that was successful as a storytelling device. And I think it didn't help that I I started it during the pandemic, and I spent so much time alone, sort of alone with these thoughts and really, you know, it's very strange to kind of pick at an open wound for the sake of commodifying it. It's very strange to put that into a product that's going to be sold. So all of it felt very strange, and I think it really helped to read many of these other texts to understand why I feel the way I do and what I want people to get out of this book.

But it just took a long time, which it seems like a really simple book. There are very few words, but it just really agonized over every single choice. And I can now say it was cathartic, but in the process of it, it was really a difficult thing to do.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You know, I've heard people say that, especially Black women or just writers of color in general, are like encouraged to write about trauma, you know, and that that's like, write about that. Don't write about joy. And I think what is so special about the book is you, you worked through, and this child does experience that. But the book is, like you said, very tender and very, it holds you in a way so that even if it is it is that it is a traumatic experience this little girl has, but it's it's so uplifting in its finish.

Vashti Harrison: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I think part of that is my sort of, I don't know, understanding of picture book as a medium. I think I could have told a much more complicated and difficult story if it was a middle grade book or You book or an adult novel or book in verse or a film, but this is the version that I wanted to leave kids with, which is an aspirational story.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.

Vashti Harrison: I think this girl finds self love at the end, which I think I'm still struggling with. I'm still trying to figure out for myself. So I think the goal is to, at least for me, is to make something that, I don't know, offers kids more than I have or more than I I received, I think, to hopefully set them up to just go through life a little bit easier than, I don't know, us from the nineties who struggled with so much. Yeah. Sometimes, since I've been in the garden, I've looked up through the trees at the sky, and I've had a strange feeling of being happy, as if something were pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast.

Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people, so it must be all around us, in this garden, in all the

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: places. That passage comes from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, first published in 1911. It speaks to the quiet magic in the world, the way nature breathes life into everything it touches, from leaves and flowers to the human spirit. The story moved Vashti even as a child. But, perhaps appropriately for a future filmmaker, it wasn't the book that first impacted her life.

It was the movie.

Vashti Harrison: Yeah. I'm not sure when the film came out, I believe, in the early nineties. I don't remember a time before not seeing this movie. It's always been sort of part of my my library of inspiration, and I remember having it at home. We recorded it off of the TV, I believe.

So I had a VHS of it that I would watch regularly. And the things that I remember the most about it, the things that inspired me the most were some of just the atmosphere and the textures. Like, I remember the sound of Mary's little shoes click clacking on the pavement as she would leave the house misslethwait and go out to the garden. Like and so I I think I've always been attracted to kind of making things that have these, I don't know, distinct textures and distinct sounds, but I specifically remember the character of Dickon showing Mary that the plants weren't dead, that there's still life. And he scratched at the bark to show her that there was green underneath it.

And so I think those things felt so sort of, like, texturally interesting and and just stuck with me that throughout, like, my artwork and through my film work, I've always tried to make work that feels like it has these just sort of nods to the idea that nature can be magical and that there is something really magical about something that could be as normal and simple as a garden. But just having these little secrets to uncover always felt so attractive to me as a young person.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Vashti's fascination with uncovering secret magic in the world stayed with her well past childhood until, years later, she discovered there had been a potent layer of magic tucked away in her own family all along.

Vashti Harrison: A lot of the work that I was making as I was sort of developing my artistic voice in college I was really inspired by fairy tale and fantasy. Mhmm. I can definitely see the through line from things like the secret garden into things that feel more fantastical. And then everything sort of shifted for me when I went to Trinidad for the first time. I didn't go until 2010, and I was it was right after I finished college.

My grandfather passed away. Mhmm. My Trinidadian culture is something I grew up understanding through the music and through the food and my family members, but I had never been there. And it kind of was just an entire shift for me when I when I arrived because just the way people talk, the way they tell stories, It feels like storytelling, folklore, ghost stories are just part of the lexicon. It's just the way they describe things.

They will make references to jumbies, to spirits, just in regular conversation. That is just the way the culture is there. And I I loved that so much, and I felt like, oh, this is what I've been searching for. This is what I wanna focus on. So I started making work specifically about sort of reconnecting or sort of learning about my heritage through visiting and through talking to people.

And I think the sort of visual aesthetic I approached it with was always with me, that sort of garden me, flora and fauna appreciation, but the sort of ghostly darker side of it. The way I describe it is the collision between the natural and the supernatural that felt like a natural extension of that same approach.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You know, I think it's kind of cool, like, just thinking about, like, little leaders, little legends in its own way, even though they're not at all about flora and fauna or birds or any of those, but they are about, like, scratching a surface in a way, like you described earlier, the bark from the tree and, like, take it and sort of like uncovering, quote, magic, you know, in these real stories that are there. So I do I do see that connection.

Vashti Harrison: Yeah. Thank you. I feel like it's always gonna be a shock and a surprise to me that my entry into the publishing world was through nonfiction. Definitely wouldn't have ever thought that about myself. I've always sort of been drawn to these stories of flora and fauna and fantasy, or I guess, like, the magic of the natural world.

But I think after sort of developing my artistic voice through making all these films about Trinidad and Tobago and putting them out into the world and then coming out on the other side and feeling like, okay. What do I wanna focus on now? The things that I felt attracted to and inspired by all sort of led me to this point. I mean, the world was changing. A lot happened in 2016, and the idea for little leaders came right on the heels of the last election, and I went into Black History Month feeling like I want to do something active.

I want to make work that connects with people. And the characters for Little Leaders, the design of the character, I came up with a few months prior when I was in London, which London was a city that also had this sort of, like, shifting effect in the way that I wanted to see the world, explore the world, and I loved visiting. I'd gone to, like, the Natural History Museum and, you know, Natural History Museum is problematic in many ways, but the architecture definitely left me inspired. I'm like, wow. It's beautiful.

And then across the street is the Victorian Albert Museum, and I was so disappointed that I had just missed this Winnie the Pooh exhibition. Oh, yeah. And I was on the plane flying back, and I was thinking, man, I'm so upset that I didn't get to see this Winnie the Pooh show. And And I was thinking about the character of Winnie the Pooh. Like, man, isn't it amazing to design a character to come up with a character that immediately when people see it, it causes them a reaction to go, oh, and they wanna hug him and they love him.

And I thought, I wanna be able to create characters like that. And then I thought to myself, like, isn't it really sad that we can feel that way about animals, but we don't always feel that about children, particularly black children? So I think I was coming off of, like, the last couple of years was news story after news story, Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice. And I just felt like, man, I wish I could make work that made people respond the same way they have to Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin, but do that for black children. So I think all of that was coming together, and I think it made sense that Little Leaders would be the result of this.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I think it feels like what you're describing in a way is like you felt compelled really to create this. And so I think it's almost like you didn't feel, like, afforded. Like, you couldn't just go do this or that. Like, you felt like the compulsion to create this thing because the times called for you to create that thing. You know?

Vashti Harrison: Yeah. Definitely. I definitely feel that. And I I think it was partially the state of the world, but it was also partially, like, me coming to understand what kind of work I wanna be making outside of school, outside of a school setting. It's not just for me.

It's not just for my own exploration. If my goal is to make work that connects with people, I need to be reflecting the people. And so I I felt a necessity, a push to be more responsive to the world around me rather than just make the things that were fun for me, but also still make them fun for me.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yes. So fun for you too. Right? So I know that you you always drew as a kid, but did you always see yourself as an artist?

Vashti Harrison: I did. Yeah. I found a sort of school assignment journal, like, one of those marble covered Yeah. Composition notebooks, and it says on the first page, it said, my name is Vashti, and I wanna be an artist when I grow up.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh, that's amazing.

Vashti Harrison: I wish I could find that notebook now.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yes. You need to have that framed on your yeah.

Vashti Harrison: But, you know, I look at that, and I I think about that, and it it makes me a little sad because I know that I I wanted to be an artist, but at a certain point, I switched that. I thought that it's not possible to be an artist, that you can't be successful and be an artist. I definitely internalized these thoughts about, like, what it means to be successful really early on, and I tried to reject art making for

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: for a

Vashti Harrison: long time.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: So interesting. And what what did you end up studying in college? Like, I know you went to Cal Arts, but I think that was later. Right?

Vashti Harrison: For undergrad, I went to the University of Virginia, and I was planning on double majoring in I think I wanted to be a foreign affairs major. I didn't really have a sense of how to find my way. I believe it was my 1st semester that I took art history for fun. That was gonna be my fun class, and that was the beginning of the end. That was my gateway class.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Your gateway drug? Mhmm.

Vashti Harrison: Because I took art history and then art too. And I was just like, I don't wanna study this stuff. I wanna make it. I wanna talk more about the thought process behind what these people what they were thinking when they were making this art. Mhmm.

And so just for fun, I took a drawing class the next semester, and then then that was it. I was like, okay. There's no way I can keep pretending that I don't wanna do this, but I couldn't keep myself away from it. And by the end of that year, I started thinking, okay. Is this really what I wanna do?

If I'm gonna study art, if I wanna be an artist, should I stay at the University of Virginia? Should I go somewhere else? You know, does anyone grow up to be a drawer?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Wrestling with those questions, Vashti eventually chose to focus on filmmaking, graduating from UVA and moving on to the experimental film program at Cal Arts. But despite winning accolades for her thesis film, she was soon frustrated by the limited entry level work in the movie industry.

Vashti Harrison: I wanted to be treated like a creative person in the room. I was really struggling working in film, just being a cog in the machine. Yeah. And so I was applying for a number of different jobs, and eventually nothing came through. And I said, okay.

I'm gonna stop applying for jobs and trying to make it work. I'm going to just move back home with my parents. The only thing that has been making me money recently is these little art commissions I've been doing, like people paying me a couple $100 to design their wedding invitations or their greeting cards or something. Maybe this is what I'm gonna focus on. And if I'm gonna treat this seriously, you know, if I'm gonna actually move home with my parents, I have to treat this seriously because I I can't stay there forever.

And I had been hearing from those podcasts I was listening to about SCBWI, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. So I finally joined, and I hadn't joined prior because, like, the membership fee was, like, a $100, and I wasn't willing to just pay that out of curiosity. But now, I was like, okay. I'm gonna spend the money on this. And even if I can't afford it for another year, I'm going to leave this year with every bit of information that they can offer me.

I'm gonna read all of their material. I'm gonna listen to all of their podcasts. And that means I'm going to start posting my art more publicly and more actively. And so they had, like, a drawing competition, like, a monthly prompt. And the prize for this little competition was to have your art placed in the monthly newsletter.

So I moved home with my parents in about, like, March of 2016. In May, I submitted my drawing at at the end of May. And I opened up my email on June 1, 2016. And in the newsletter was my drawing. And I was like, oh, my gosh.

This is amazing. I felt so validated. Like, yeah. Maybe this is the right thing. But the next day, June 2nd, I got an email from an art director saying that she had seen my illustration, asking me if I wanted to illustrate a book.

And I was like, wait, what? That that happened a little faster than I expected. I am terrified. I don't think I can do it. I'm gonna do it because I said this is what I'm gonna do.

I need to do it, but I was terrified. I said yes. And fortunately, SPWI had, like, a chapter in their guidebook that's literally called, so you just got your 1st deal in illustration. Now what? And it walked you through how to negotiate your contract, and I did that.

And that was just the beginning of everything.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: And you're very driven. I think a lot of people have a perception of artists as, like, very carefree and, like, the I move with the wind. Mhmm. You know, whether or not that's true for some artists. Instead, you took, like, a different approach of, like, I'm gonna this is it.

I'm gonna focus, and I'm gonna drive to get this thing that you wanted, you know, but it wasn't be the lawyer, you know.

Vashti Harrison: Right. Exactly.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: It's like the, you know, the language of your soul, really, instead. Are you surprised that you did find a way to be a drawer as a career? That, yes, that is that is a career. Does it surprise you that you, like, did this whole long, like, giant loop and then came to find yourself as an illustrator and a writer?

Vashti Harrison: Yeah. It does. It definitely does. I never even thought of illustration or children's books as something that was possible for me. And I think, like, now that we're back on this side of the loop, I'm interested in looping back around and bringing in my ghost stories and Trinidadian folklore into my book work and Yeah.

Maybe eventually more film or television work. Can you

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: say a little more about that?

Vashti Harrison: I mean, I'm interested in meeting kids where they are, and, you know, I want my stories to connect with young people. And I remember not having a lot of picture books at home. I remember my mom not liking to spend money on books, and I think about how we had television. We had at the very least, we had, like, PBS. And I remember watching cartoons and really connecting with characters through, you you know, film and television.

And so I've always had in the back of my mind, if there's a scenario where someone isn't gonna have access to a book like Little Leaders or have access to a book like Big, I would love for them to be able to have access to a film or TV version of it.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Okay. Yes. I'm putting that into the universe. I want the TV version of it. But I'm sure you've had some very special moments when you're visiting schools or doing read alouds.

And I know you've said that many parents, many moms, especially, and thank you for writing big and have an experience with that, but I'd love for you to share about any memorable moments that you've had or interactions that you've had with kids that you've visited.

Vashti Harrison: I think one of my favorite things is at every school presentation I do, I always end with a drawing demonstration, and I walk them through how to draw my characters. And then they go off and they go back to their classrooms. And, like, a day later or the end of the day, I'll get an email from one of the teachers to say, like, look, the kids were still talking about it afterwards. Look, they drew your characters. They followed your steps and they created their own characters.

That to me feels so powerful to offer them tools to express themselves. That feels amazing. And I get given many gifts of kids' drawings and the things that they wanna share with me. And, like, that feels really, really powerful. As much as stories matter to me and my books matter to me, I'll always connect with the kids who just wanna be doodling in the corner.

And if it's helping them express themselves, then I will feel like maybe I'm doing something right with this.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I'd say you're doing something right. And I'm not the only one, obviously, who thinks it. You've won a lot of awards, a lot of prestigious awards, and especially the Caldecott medal for big. And, you know, when you accepted the award, you gave this incredible speech that acknowledged artist after artist who really paved the way for you. And I wanted just to hear more about that about that speech.

Vashti Harrison: I think people describe my, like, entry into the book world as the sort of, like, meteoric rise. I hit the ground running with, like Yeah. You know, Little Leaders was, like, an immediate hit, and it took off in ways that I couldn't have anticipated. But I truly attribute the fact that I was able to have an idea and sell it for a 3 book deal, and then have it come out that year. Like, I attribute that ease through which I entered this industry to all of the work that many people have been doing, all the groundwork that people have laid over the, like, 10 years prior.

So the we need diverse books and the own voices movements in the publishing industry to make the runway for me to take off like that. The first thing they told me about winning this Caldecott medal is that I'm the 1st black woman to win this award, and that didn't make any sense to me. There are many people who have come before me, especially people who have been given the Caldecott honor, including friends of mine. So Right. Before you give me all that praise, let's acknowledge that there's so many people here who absolutely could have and should have won that award, including, like, at the time, a living legend, Faith Ringgold.

And it made a lot of sense that I entered publishing with this book, Little Leaders, that celebrated black women in history, and that I wouldn't be where I am without the work of so many of those people, that it was absolutely important to acknowledge all the the 7 black women that had been given a Caldecott honor before me. But, yeah, I think in terms of, like, my own personal influences, I think I'm still developing as a creator. I think my work has has changed a lot over the last 8 years because I'm still learning. I'm still finding new ways to express myself, and I think I'll probably continue to do that, but I think it definitely is important for me to study the people who have come before

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: me. With Vashti's dedication to representation and body acceptance, it's no surprise that her reading challenge centers around those themes. She's curated a list of books that inspired and helped her in the process of writing big about understanding and dismantling anti fat bias, adultification bias, and celebrations of black girlhood. This is Vashti's big reading list.

Vashti Harrison: So first one is Girlhood Interrupted, which is not a book. It is the study from the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality. The full title is, Girlhood Interrupted the Erasure of Black Girls' Childhoods. And that was my first introduction to the term adultification bias, and it definitely shifted the way I wanted to approach my work and definitely a jumping off point for the story of Big. So one really important one is called Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings.

Also, The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor. Fat Talk, Virginia Sol Smith. What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat, Aubrey Gordon, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, and I have some picture books. I have Bodies Are Cool by Tyler Feder, I Love My Body Because by Shelly Annand, and a middle grade book in verse, Starfish by Lisa Phipps.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You can download Vashti's reading challenge and all of our author reading challenges at the reading culture pod.com. And this week's Beanstack featured librarian is Kat Gatcombe. Kat is now my colleague at Beanstack. But before that, she was a youth services supervisor for a Nashua Public Library in New Hampshire. Today, Kat shares about a program she ran that called upon a cross section of her community.

Kat Gatcomb: One program that I really loved, I thought went well, it was well received by our community, was an early childhood fair. And the purpose is really to connect families with children under 5 to community resources, because not all of them might be in daycare or preschool. They might not know what's available to them. So before they're in school, connecting them to their community. So that was a lot of fun to work with all the other community partners and plan this fair.

We had it outside. We had musical performers and art projects and, you know, food, like, things to to make it a fun event, but then also really focus on educating parents and caregivers about what was available to them. And I think it was good too for the library to become aware of everything that was available. So, if people asked us questions, we had contact information for where to send them.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: This has been The Reading Culture, and you've been listening to my conversation with Vashti Harrison. Again, I'm your host, Jordan Lloyd Bookie. And currently, I'm rereading James by Percival Everett since it's the first book of my new, woo hoo, book club and Ultraviolet by Aida Salazar. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please show some love and give us a 5 star review. It only takes a second, and it really helps.

Thank you for doing it. This episode was produced by Mel Webb, Jackie Lamport, and Lower Street Media and script edited by Josiah Lamberto Egan. To learn more about how you can help grow your community's reading culture, check out all of our resources at beanstack.com. And remember to sign up for our newsletter at the readingculturepod.comforward/newsletter for special offers and bonus content. Thanks for listening, and keep reading.