Sometimes, the little things aren’t all that little. So when Yanki Smith makes a spiral flourish with her hand to indicate writing with a pen and says her contribution to the writing of Moving Day Made Fun was “a little something something,” it makes me stop and think.
The story of the book’s creation is this. Barb Stratman, who is the Director of Education at Canopy South and who oversees the organizations’ “Cradle to Career” pillar, had been working with the Omaha Housing Authority on revitalization efforts that were leading to the relocation of residents from the Southside Terrace neighborhood. Barb thought it would be a good idea to approach a local resident who could write a book about the moving process.
At the same time, she’d been part of a community of practice with Laura Cady who was then with Nebraska Growing Readers (NGR), a Nebraska Children and Families Foundation initiative. Stratman and Cady agreed that the project would be a good fit for NGR. Stratman approached Canopy South’s Ambassador program (neighborhood leadership program) and asked who might be a good person to author the book. The overwhelming response was Yanki.
Yanki Smith is the mother of 3 girls, Miracle (23), My’Kiyah (11), and Ya’Miyah (6). Since Smith has two younger daughters, one of whom is a good age for NGR books, Stratman thought they would be a “really good fit.” Smith was making the move from the Southside Terrace-Indian Hill neighborhood to the Highlander neighborhood and, as she says of her two youngest girls, “they wanted to move but they didn’t want to move. They were iffy but happy.” What she describes is the combined excitement and fear involved in a move, especially for children. Her kids were moving to a bigger place with 3 bedrooms, but they were leaving friends and a familiar place behind.
Smith was immediately onboard with the project. She said, “Barb reached out to me, and I thought it was a great idea that we do a book about the moving process.” She knew of her own children’s apprehensions about relocating and “wanted kids not to feel so bad moving. They wouldn’t feel so scared to move to a new home.”
While Stratman approached Smith with some basic text, Smith read it and pointed to places where the text didn’t seem like what would happen when someone moved. Her little “something something” was to make the text authentic to her experience, an important addition to the creation of the book.
After crafting the text together, Stratman and Smith met to take photos for the book. What Stratman describes is a family experience. Smith had done the girl's hair and said that “they were super excited to participate.” They took photos of the family doing things to ease the transition of a move, like photographing familiar places to remember, donating old toys to thrift stores, and singing songs on the drive to the new place. The result was a book that showed families how to make a move to a new place easier and more enjoyable. As Smith put it, “when it comes to other families, I want the kids to be able to look at it and say, ‘these kids, they look like they’re happy to move. The move will probably be great, so let’s think positive about it.’”
Stratman emphasizes the point when she says that when someone reads books, they often want to see themselves in that book, which can provide comfort. She goes on to add, “I think it’s important that a lot of kids read this book and see themselves in Yanki’s kids. They might say, ‘oh, that’s how my mom braids my hair’ or ‘that looks like where I live.’” Another bigger “something something” that Smith then provides in writing the book is to connect the text to children in the Southside Terrace neighborhood and others like them so that they feel their landscape as an important literary one.
And indeed connections have already been made. When she received the book, Smith said that her youngest daughter said, “I’m on the book cover and on the inside!” She describes reading the book to Ya’Miyah, “me and the little one, we sat and read it, and we got to the part where they were meditating, and she literally closed her eyes. . . .” Here Smith demonstrated her daughter closing her eyes and pinching thumb and middle fingers together with palms upright. She goes on to say, “that little one, she’ll go in my room and take the NGR book out and act like she’s reading.” These are the early literacy moments NGR aims for in producing the books.
It's no surprise that a child would be excited by seeing herself in a book, but it was other families’ responses that are more telling. Smith said she heard from local families things like, “oh, yeah, I didn’t think about that, taking photos of important places in the neighborhood.” Such responses show that the book has connected to the community and gives families “a step-by-step process that makes moving fun rather than scary.” In fact, Stratman says that Canopy South distributes the book to Southside Terrace residents who have children and are moving to help them with the process.
Stratman also expresses another important aspect of Smith’s more than little something contribution, her place as a role model. Stratman shares that she’s “learned how important it is for kids to see their parents as authors.” She talks about how exciting it was to “email Yanki’s daughter’s 1st grade teacher and say, ‘hey, did you know you have an author as one of your parents?’” She recognizes that Smith’s position as author not only creates an important role model for her child, but also has larger echoes into the community, where others might aspire to do the same.
One thing is clear, the echoes across the community have generated excitement about reading and about authorship. Straman says that she has shared the NGR website and that people have been impressed “because the books really speak to a Nebraska audience.” Home visitors she works with applaud the easy access to free books and the translations into multiple languages, particularly Spanish. Smith shares the sentiment and says its “pretty awesome that you can look at a book on the website and listen to it being read.” She would like to see children be able to get on their school Ipads and access the NGR site to read and listen to different books.
Stratman and Smith are now planning to write future books together. There has been talk about a going back to school book, particularly one focused on starting a new school, and maybe a book about how to motivate yourself on those days you don’t want to go to school. But for now, the two can celebrate the success of their first project. Smith says, “I am excited. Hey, I am the co-author of a book!” A book that helped her children ease into a new environment after their move; a book that Smith says “made a challenging situation into a positive situation”; a book that speaks to other families and helps them prepare their kids for a move. Now that’s more than “a little something something.”
