“The kids in I Am Every Good Thing are compared to the best things: moonbeams on brand new snow, the center of a cinnamon roll, a perfect paper airplane that glides for blocks.
When Derrick Barnes first started writing children’s books 15 years ago, he didn’t see Black kids — and Black boys in particular — being depicted in this way.
“Whenever you saw a black male character in children’s books, he was either playing basketball, he was a runaway slave, or just visually looking very docile or assimilating,” Barnes says.
Barnes has four sons of his own and he wrote his new book to be empowering and affirming — two bounces and a front flip off the diving board on a Saturday morning affirming. “I compare our sons to things that are universally good … to show America that our boys have just as much value as your sons,” he says.”