We have a book coming out!!

Two faces in circles, black and white. Caroline and Jessica are both white women with brown hair.

Just over a year ago, Caroline Cupp, a fellow disabled mama, messaged me and asked if I had any advice for where to find a picture book with disabled moms. Her son, Henry, had started to notice that none of the families in his books looked like his family — both of his parents have cerebral palsy. Khalil and Henry are the same age, and Khalil had also started to ask while pointing to pages in his books, Where is that Mama’s wheelchair?!

A Black child on the lap of a white woman in a wheelchair. The child is wearing a yellow tutu. The woman is wearing a red shirt. Both are kind of rolling their eyes.

We lamented that disability representation was hard to find in our kids’ books, and before long, we had decided to write our own. Because there is a dearth of books with disabled families, we wanted ours to have a broad range of representation.

For a couple of months, we interviewed people with disabilities about how their families play together. We paid our interviewees for their time, knowing how often disabled people are asked to work for pennies. These conversations were beautiful. We were struck by the joy and innovation happening in households with disabled family members. Creative adaptation is a beautiful expression of love.

Taking these stories, we drafted a manuscript. Each page features a different family playing together. The book is joyful and descriptive and allows the readers to look at how different bodies and minds have fun together.

I will share in a future newsletter about the actual process of getting this book deal, but for this issue, I’ll skip to the end. Dial Books at Penguin Random House will be publishing THIS IS HOW WE PLAY (and another book!) in 2023. We are still pinching ourselves. We have a 2-book deal for picture books celebrating families like ours!!!

We, of course, included our families in the book. So in just over a year, Khalil can point to a page where he will see a mama that looks like me, riding in her power chair, holding his hand.

A Black child and a white woman hold hands. The white woman is in her wheelchair. Goats on on the roof of the building behind them. Both are wearing purple.

Jessica Slice writes about disability, poems, and waterfowl

THIS IS HOW WE PLAY COMING 2023!!!!