Help me tell my new story.
Dear Friends & Family Members,
I’m writing to you today to let you know about the Kickstarter campaign for my new children’s book “Planting Flags on Division Street.” This project has been in the works for a while and I want to share why I’ve decided to self publish this story.
Why do I write?
I write to forget, I write to escape. I write to change what I see before my eyes into something better. I write to wipe out the bad and to give me, and others, better memories of fairer histories.
I write stories that people who’ve been told they don’t have any stories to tell. I write to fill the Grand Canyon sized hole that the children’s literature publishing industry has created by not addressing the needs of Latino children.
As a little girl in Lorain, Ohio I didn’t have books about Latino girls and boys growing up in the United States of America. All the stories I read were filled with children that didn’t look like me and were set in communities that were different than my neighborhood.
After I had my first child I found out what a challenge it was to find stories that reflected my daughter’s culture and reality. Now, with my eight year old son, I continue to struggle to find stories that celebrate our culture and values, as well as share with him other cultures, beliefs, and realities. It’s even harder to find stories that encourage him to imagine and see himself in different places doing different things.
As a professor and former teacher I know how important stories are and how they shape and define how we see ourselves and others. It’s important for many different kinds of stories to be told. It’s also important for us to read, hear and tell stories that encourage us to imagine, hope and dream of something better and work for a cause bigger than ourselves.
That’s why I write.
Please join me in making our children’s books as diverse as the lives we live.
Together we can tell stories that make a difference.
Pa’lante,
Raquel
Click here to see our Kickstarter campaign.
