Owlet Press lands three mixed heritage stories

Indie children's publisher Owlet Press will publish three titles focusing on and celebrating “the diversity within Black heritage” early next year.

On 25th January 2022, the publisher will release Colour and Me by author-illustrator Michaela Dias-Hayes. It is described as “a joyful picture book that empowers young children and shows them that brown skin is beautiful”.

Dias-Hayes (pictured top), the illustrator of Sunflower Sisters (Owlet Press), said: “I wrote this book after mixing paints with my son – when he mixed all the paints together, he looked at me and said ‘Yuk brown … I hate brown!’ I explained, ‘It’s not yuk — it’s beautiful, like you and me.’ It made me think about how children see the colour brown as ‘not nice’ which then leads to negative feelings about themselves and their skin colour. I realised that I, too, had felt the same way as a child and this needs to instinctively change. I wanted to create a book, accessible to really young children, that celebrates brown skin and, on a really subtle level, nods to us all being a mixture of things and that we’re beautiful no matter what that ‘mixture’ looks like – we should all celebrate the melting pot of our heritage.”

On 1st March, the second title, Annette Demetriou’s Me in the Middle will be released. Inspired by Demetriou’s own experiences of being mixed-race but looking “white”, the story follows a young girl, who has a white mother and Black father, as she embarks on a school family tree project and learns to embrace her mixed heritage and far-reaching roots.

Demetriou (pictured right) explained: “This story was written from quite an emotional place. It’s loosely based on my own experience as a child, being mixed heritage and not visually fitting into a category of black or white. The story is told in a positive, uplifting way that embraces our differences and acknowledges that there are so many different ways a family can be made up: each one truly special. I hope this book encourages children to embrace their family, cultures and, on a personal note, to show that mixed heritage children absolutely come in all sorts of shades, shapes and sizes, and that you really can’t define someone at a glance.”

Finally, on 7th June 2022, Just Like Grandpa Jazz by Tarah L Gear will be published, a picture book in which white-skinned, blue-eyed Frank gets to know more about his family’s background and their journey to England through his Mauritian grandpa. Written from Gear's personal experiences of privilege and racism within her mixed-race family, the book “subtly educates readers on racism and immigration, whilst focussing on how we must continue to share family stories generation after generation, in order to understand and celebrate our heritage and our roots”.

Gear (pictured left) said: “For many, 2020 sparked a great deal of learning about anti-racism and a better realisation of the privileges we carry – in their many forms. Because we have different skin tones, some of my family have experienced racism and some of us haven’t. So, within one very close family there are privileges and experiences existing side by side. So much similarity, yet so much difference. On the surface, my book is about how storytelling connects us – to patterns and tropes which make us feel safe and at home, but also to our past, to our ancestors and those whose footsteps in which we follow. If it wasn’t for Grandpa Jazz’s stories, young Frank would grow up without a connection to his heritage, without realising his privileges and without truly knowing his grandpa. I wrote this book to show how storytelling is a critical process in breaking down the construct of race, but also to depict the loving and fun relationship between a kid and his grandpa – two people who are captivated, enthralled, fun-loving, fiery, silly, eccentric and in a world of their own, but whom the world treats differently because of a superficial difference.”

Sam Langley-Swain, founder of Owlet Press, commented: “The publishing industry is certainly striving to be more inclusive, but we want to push things that bit further, to highlight the more nuanced stories of what it means to have Black heritage in a society that often wants to put us all in a box. These varied stories of mixed heritage experiences are vital in helping children to explore and understand what race really is alongside identity, family and diversity – and I’m thrilled to have three such talented authors on our list to boldly tell their stories.”