Clothilde Ewing had trouble finding diverse books for her kids, so she wrote her own

Several years ago, Clothilde Ewing of Chicago read a New York Times article about how Black children want books on topics beyond civil rights activists.

The article, “Black Kids Don’t Want to Read About Harriet Tubman All the Time” by Denene Millner, resonated with Ewing.

So Ewing said she tacked the story on her vision board. Several years later, Ewing wrote “Stella Keeps the Sun Up,” which Simon and Schuster published in March under its Denene Millner Books imprint.

Ewing said she feels children of any race can relate to her book’s theme.

“It’s about a kid who doesn’t want to go to bed at night and tries to figure out a way to keep the sun up so she can stay awake,” Ewing said. “It’s a kid experience.”

Despite Ewing’s profuse and varied writing experiences, she never assumed that writing “Stella Keeps the Sun Up” would be an easy process. Ewing said she drew on her love for books, her desire for her two young children to love books and the need that Ewing saw for “regular books” that featured diverse characters.

“I’m hoping that families and little kids in particular can relate to Stella and embrace her in their homes,” Ewing said.

An idea is born

When Ewing was expecting her oldest child, Stella, now 7, she asked loved ones to share their favorite book titles so Ewing could start building her children’s home library.

“Reading was important to me,” Ewing said. “I was excited to introduce our future child to great books.”

Ewing wanted her children to read a variety of books, including those on heroes in the civil rights movement. Stella currently loves Ramona Quimby in the Beverly Cleary books, Ewing said. But the lack of diversity in children’s titles troubled Ewing.

“There weren’t as many books as I would have liked to have seen with a child who happens to be Black,” Ewing said, “especially joyful stories about a kid being a kid. My kids are wildly imaginative and fun and precocious and all that. And I hoped to see more books that reflected that with kids that looked like them.”

So Ewing wrote her own book and is working on a second in the “Stella” series, she said.

Diverse books benefit all kids

Because children often relate to the characters in the books they read, Ewing said she wondered what children of color think when few books have characters with their physical attributes.

“But what does it also say to a white kid who never reads a book or a picture book and see a character that looked different from them,” Ewing said.

Ewing said she isn’t the first author to write a book about a child of color and she won’t be the last. And that’s a good thing.

“I have been touched to see how kids have been responding to it,” Ewing said. “These are kids of different races, ethnicities, genders. And they are loving Stella.”

Ewing, vice president of strategic communications at The Chicago Community Trust, said she also worked in communications for Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. Her author page on the Simon and Schuster website said Ewing also worked as a journalist for CBS News and as a TV producer for “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Ewing is married to Jean Kenol, who was raised in Joliet and currently works for Mahoney, Silverman & Cross in Joliet. They are the parents of Stella, 7, and Jackson, 6.

For information and to buy “Stella Keeps the Sun Up,” visit clothildeewing.com.