Jamie Marks

When Marley & Halle were tiny bambinos, I struggled to find children’s books where they could see themselves reflected.

There were books, obviously. But finding stories with children of colour at the centre, just being kids, having adventures, being imaginative, having fun and getting to be the heroes felt much harder than it should have been. Like much harder hey!

Soo.... I wrote one for them. 🤎

Had I ever written a book before? Absolutely bloody not 😂 So I started from the place I knew how and wrote it like a song. A very, very long song.

I had big dreams of it becoming a self-published series. It was supposed to be out in the world by now, hopefully making its own teeny tiny contribution to changing the numbers.

And the numbers are changing. The latest UK research found that 24% of children’s books for ages 3–11 had a main character of colour, up from just 7% the year before. The latest BookTrust research into who creates our children’s books found that only 11.7% of creators were people of colour.

Those numbers matter because representation matters. The stories children see themselves in can shape how they see themselves and the world around them, their relationship with reading and even what they imagine is possible for their future.

But regardless of all the shoulda, coulda, woulda’s, it’s beyond exciting watching my girls reach an age where they can now read their story themselves.
Seeing their curls, their beautiful brown skin and little pieces of themselves reflected back at them on the page.

Not because the story is about being different. Not because they have something to learn or explain about who they are.
They just get to be the main characters.

It’s a big part of why I love what I do so much, too.
Whether it’s through the stories I tell, the work I create or the rooms I get to be in, I get to champion, shout, bloody scream about people who look like me, people who look like my girls, and for all women whose voices and experiences haven’t always been centred.

Being seen matters. 🤎

And maybe one day I’ll actually get this very, very, very long song out into the world hey.