Multiracial Heritage Week and Modern Farms

I just opened an email today that let me know this is Multiracial Heritage Week. As I am reflecting on our upcoming 2-year anniversary of Modern Farms’ release, it made me think of the story of how my female character came to be.

When I had originally sketched out my thumbnails for Modern Farms and shared them with my co-illustrator, Karen Light, there were no humans featured in the book at all. She made the great suggestion that I include a “guide” or “narrator” to make the story more unifying and to give readers a main character focus. Of course, she was right and her suggestion made the book 1000% better.

You may not realize the amount of thought that went into creating this character though.

Immediately, I knew that I wanted her to be female to combat the infuriating stereotype in children’s books that all farmers are male. (Can I get an AMEN from my female farmers!) That part was easy. But how did I want her to look?

The only thing I knew for sure was I didn’t want her to be blond and blue-eyed. I wanted more diverse representation, but who would she be? Would she be African-American, Latina, Native American or something else?

In the end, I arrived upon a multiracial look on purpose. She has brown skin, not too light and not too dark. Her hair is long and dark brown and flairs out from her face. This could be because she styled it that way or because it is full and textured. I leave it to the reader to determine.

I want her to be as representative to my readers as I could make her. This is also the reason I decided to not give her a name. She is meant to be an avatar for all little girls out there so that they might see themselves as having a rightful place in agriculture.

I’m not saying that every book I write will have a female protagonist, but don’t be super surprised if do. ;)