Bea Birdsong is a Greensboro-based writer and author of eight children’s books, with two more on the way. Her sixth book, How to Grow A Family Tree, recently won a Christopher Award from The Christophers, a national Judeo-Christian nonprofit that celebrates authors, illustrators, writers, producers, and directors for work that “affirms the highest values of the human spirit.” We recently caught up with Birdsong—her pen name—on the recognition, where she draws inspiration, and the importance of diverse books.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity
Tell me about how you got into creating children’s books.
Growing up, I thought authors lived on mountaintops in ivory towers, that it wasn’t a thing regular people did. I loved to read, but I never wrote fiction until later in life.
I went to school for elementary education, and then I was a kindergarten teacher. Then I was a stay-at-home mom, then ended up writing for the education market. I loved it because it was a way to write ideas and make it memorable for kids. It came with tight space constraints where you had to explain an idea in 500 characters. That was really excellent training for writing picture books, where you could have 500 words, and that seemed like an abundance.
I did a planner series where every month I would write about a character trait. We talked about respect, kindness, and positive traits. I wrote a story in the lesson plan up front for each of those, and that was a transition from writing nonfiction.
Eventually, my editor was like, “Have you ever thought about writing fiction for children?”
In 2015, I joined the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and wrote a couple of manuscripts. I brought them to my working group, and they said, “You really need to send this one out.” That was my first book, I Will Be Fierce.
Tell me about that first book and how it came to be.
I Will Be Fierce was a great start for me. All of my books are about empowering kids and helping them know they are valuable in the world and that they have a place and purpose in the world.
I Will Be Fierce is about that, and sometimes I look back and I need it sometimes. Like, “I can be fierce!” It really resonated with kids and adults. That was published in 2019.
The ideas for my books are different for every book. Some of them I remember in detail how I came up with the idea, others the ideas were just there.
How did How To Grow a Family Tree start?
I don’t remember the thought process, but it’s one that I think a lot of people, a lot of kids can relate to. All of our families look different; everyone has a different setup. Some kids live with a grandparent, some live with a single parent. Every situation is different.
I love the idea of found family and the people we choose. I wanted to let kids know that whatever their family looks like, it’s a wonderful family. They can create their own family with the people who are around them. Anybody you want to be in your family is in your family.
Talk to me about the award. What did it feel like to receive it?
This is my first award. I was just really excited, I was over the moon.
I knew about the Christopher Awards. I knew about other books that had won that award and movies, TV shows. They affirm the highest value of the human spirit. What a wonderful award to win. I was really honored and grateful to win.
I’ve made other lists and been chosen for state books, too.
Right now, How to Grow a Family Tree is the children’s book for One Book, One Philadelphia.
But to be recognized with an award is sort of like, Okay, the kids love the book, now the adults are saying that they recognize that you’re doing something worthwhile. So that was validating.
All of your books feature diverse protagonists and tackle nuanced lived experiences. In a time when diversity, equity, and inclusion is being pushed back against at the national level, how does that impact you and your work?
“I don’t feel qualified to speak to the experience of marginalized creators, but I have seen a push for diversity in the industry over the last ten years and since I’ve been in the industry. There’s a push for diverse creators and work that speaks to a range of experiences. I think it’s super important. Every child should see themselves in a book, in many books.
I don’t agree with bookbanning. I don’t think a book should ever be taken out because a small subsection doesn’t want their child to accidentally read that book.
In the publishing industry, I think the push for diversity should continue. For example, in How to Grow a Family Tree, the protagonist is hard of hearing, which I also am. It’s not a disability that is represented often.
In our book You Did It!, illustrator Madi Wong created beautiful illustrations that show a huge range of diversity. If you have a cast of characters, they should not all look the same. That’s not how our society looks, that’s not how our classrooms look, so why would our books look like that?
There’s also a bit of a shift in attention these days. Kids are increasingly stuck to screens. How do you combat that as a book author?
All of our attention spans have gotten shorter because of screens, adults’ too. Now, kids have screens in front of them pretty much from birth. Therefore, picture books have gotten shorter. A 1,500-word picture book may have been acceptable in the nineties, but now, a picture fiction book needs to be 500 words or less.
The pandemic didn’t help. There were lots of kids who didn’t go to kindergarten. They were born and raised in the pandemic, and there weren’t storytimes. That also affected attention spans.
What I can do is write as engaging a text as I can. I can make it fun and impactful as I can and get myself out to schools and libraries and say, ‘Let’s read these books together.’
Reading has benefits far beyond understanding the word on the written page. It increases your attention span, it increases your memory, it makes you more empathetic to other people, it helps you understand yourself. All of those things I talk about get kids excited about reading, to feel empowered and ownership over reading.
What’s your favorite part about creating children’s books?
My favorite part is reading to the kids. To meet kids and talk to them about books, that is my favorite part because I think kids are the best readers.
They’re the ones that if you can get them excited about reading, they’re all in. They are the ones that will put a book under their pillow because they want to be close to the characters. They will dress up like the characters for Halloween. They’re the ones that will give you a hug because they feel like I wrote the book just for them, and I say, “Yes, I did.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to make the context for the author’s comments around diversity in children’s book publishing clearer.
