Meena Harris On Her New Children's Book

"Kamala and Maya's Big Idea" is based on a true story you were told about your mom and your aunt. Do you remember the first time you heard it? And when you knew you would one day turn it into a book? 


The story that inspired "Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea" is one I’ve heard from my mom, aunt, and grandma, before she passed, for as long as I can remember. When my mom or aunt encountered something that was unfair or unjust, my grandma would say to them, “So what are you going to do about it?” She was a civil rights activist and instilled in them, and me, the idea of “everyday activism” and that “no one can do everything, but everyone can do something.” I’ve long wanted to memorialize this story, not only for my own daughters, but also for all children. I think we can all learn something from Kamala and Maya — and Shyamala — in real life and on the page.


As a new parent reading children’s lit classics to my kids, I was also thinking about this: in 2018, there were as many kids books with animals as main characters as there were books with Black, Latinx, Asian or Native main characters combined. Only 21% of children’s books in the same year were written or illustrated by people of color. It’s outrageous. After learning that, I could hear my grandmother’s voice saying, “Well, what are you going to do about it?” So I wrote a book myself!


The book is a wonderful lesson in the power of working together to make change, but it's also about resilience and never giving up. Can you speak to why you wanted to teach children about turning no into yes? 


I didn’t want to just tell a feel-good story about two sisters who decided to build a playground in their apartment building, and so they did, end of story. Partially, because that’s not true to what happened, and also because that’s not how life usually works out, especially not for women and girls. My grandmother told me that I could be anything I wanted, but she also taught me that nothing would be handed to me, that I would probably encounter challenges and setbacks and that I would have to use problem-solving and creative thinking to keep going. I believe taking risks, and finding new paths when old ones don’t work, is a message all kids need. That’s why in the book we call Kamala and Maya “the per-sisters.” 


And how do you approach helping your own daughters to become community-minded and to engage meaningfully with the world around them?


Practically since the day they were born, my partner and I have been teaching our girls about activism. For me, it’s how I was raised, and how my mom and aunt were raised. My daughters are still quite young, but like many kids, they are beginning to understand the world around them and engage with big feelings like fairness, empathy, curiosity, and compassion.


My mom was a single mom, so when I was very little she took me everywhere—rallies, meetings, sometimes even to class. And it had a lasting, positive impact on me. One of the reasons I wrote the book is that I realized in becoming a new parent to girls that, if, for example, you only start talking about issues like pay inequity when women are actually in the workplace, it’s almost too late. I think it’s so important for parents to start these conversations now. It’s important to talk to our kids about the issues we care about.


You were also really thinking about representation when you wrote this book and trying to ensure that children of all races could see themselves in "Kamala and Maya's Big Idea." As the mother of two daughters, can you speak to how you've approached which books you've read to them and why that's so important?


As a mom to Black daughters, diversity and representation in children’s books has always been important to me. But it became an issue I wanted to do something about when I learned the actual statistics — with so few people of color in the pages and on the by-lines. Needless to say, little girls who look like my daughters are still underrepresented on bookshelves.


When it comes to the books we read as a family, besides "Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea" — which of course is a household favorite! — it is important to me for books to have diverse characters. But there are helpful and unhelpful ways to do that. There's been a lot of attention around “diverse books” over these past few months, so I recently published an op-ed in the Washington Post telling parents, and publishers alike, that color-blindness isn’t a virtue to promote to our kids. We need fewer books about how we’re all the same, and more books about how our unique experiences are valid and important and worth celebrating. Personally for my daughters, I love books like Matthew Cherry’s "Hair Love" and Grace Byers’s "I Am Enough."


I love when you call Maya and Kamala the "per-sisters." Can you tell me more about where that came from? Is this something that your family actually used in referring to your mom and your aunt or is it a term you came up with and wanted to include in the book?


“Per-sisters” is a term I came up with while writing "Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea." I knew that persistence and resilience were values I wanted to include in my book. There will be people or forces who stand in your way. You may stumble. You may fail. But we have to teach our kids to face those challenges, and to question the status quo, or nothing will ever change. Senator Warren herself called the book “A must read for little girls around the world.” What an honor!
You grew up surrounded by strong, powerful women. Your mother, your aunt, your grandmother. Can you speak to how that has shaped the woman you've become and how you have replicated that for your own daughters?


I often joke that growing up in my family was like the opening scene of the Wonder Woman movie, where a community of strong, brilliant women ran around helping each other succeed, and basically saved the world together. That’s truly all I knew as a kid; strong, powerful women was my worldview. And even though my girls are growing up in different circumstances, I want to make sure that they learn the same lessons that I had the opportunity to learn, from an incredible, hardworking single mom, a grandmother who taught me I should always try to make an impact, an aunt that showed me the importance of public service—and really an entire community of women role models who made me who I am today. My grandmother, the rock of our family, was the inspiration behind what has become the central line of my book,“No one can do everything, but everyone can do something.” It’s a message for kids and adults alike that I am so proud to share with the world. My grandma’s
legacy lives on.


Meena Harris is Founder and CEO of Phenomenal and author of Kamala and Maya's Big Idea