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Welcome to Raising Good Humans.

I'm Dr. Eliza and today's episode is with author Derek Barnes, who's a New York Times best-selling

author, his previous children's book, The King of Kindergarten and Crown and

and Ode to the Fresh Cut are really spectacular books and his new book that just

came out is called I'm Every Good Thing And it's just not a conversation

with a children's book author, which is super interesting.

But this is a conversation with Derek,

the children's book author who is changing the world because he's writing books

about the everyday life of a black and brown boys he's writing a book lifting and affirming black and brown boys.

This doesn't exist. You could go look at your bookshelves. I'm sure everybody has

really rich libraries and diverse libraries, but you can't find these kinds of books.

And these also are just poetry and art because the illustrator Gordon James is also a classical artist.

So they're just magnificent paintings turned into the pictures for the books.

But importantly, what we're going to talk about

is, you know, when you read a book to a child,

especially a book about a subject

they're not familiar with or a person who looks unfamiliar to them, they're going to generalize because that's developmentally appropriate under the age of eight.

So if they're going to generalize and the exposure that they get

is this beautiful book, I am every good thing,

you're changing the way they perceive black and brown boys.

You're changing the way black and brown boys perceive themselves.

...