Conversations On Race: Books as "Windows And Mirrors" With Guest Mijha Godfrey
May 18, 2021
“For me it was very important that children of color could see themselves blooming where they're planted and that your story doesn't take place necessarily in China or in India or in a country in Africa, that your story can take place here where you are and you belong here.”
This week on the 3D Parent Podcast, I am chatting with guest Mijha Godrey, who is co-founder of Jambo Books. We’re having another conversation about race, and getting Mijha’s perspective on why she decided to start Jambo Books and her mission behind it.
Some of the topics covered in this episode include:
- Mijha’s mission and journey to start Jambo Books.
- The meaning behind Jambo Books and the importance of opening up conversations we need to have through these books.
- Bringing more awareness and impact to the publishing industry.
Storytelling and providing books is such a powerful vehicle to children and encouraging us to have important conversations. In this episode, Mijha is sharing how she began Jambo Books, why, and her long-term goals as well.
Things You Will Learn
[00:09] Today, we're going to have another conversation about race. This time I'm going to be talking about books as windows and mirrors with a guest, Mijha Godfrey. Mijha is co-founder of Jambo Books. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and Yale Law School prior to forming Jamba Books, Misha practiced Law in New York and was an affordable housing developer in Atlanta and served as finance director for a statewide campaign in Georgia.
[08:25] Jambo Books is a children's book subscription company. We send our members two to three books each month that are fiction and that star a child of color as the protagonist of the story. The stories also take place either in fantasy worlds or in environments that kids growing up in the United States would immediately recognize as familiar.
[12:16] We chose Jambo because Jambo means hello in Swahili. What I wanted to do, apart from offering these books was really be able to open up a conversation with our members and with other people about our backgrounds, our history and how we all move forward together.
[16:27] That's why mirrors are so very important for children of color. The windows are important because you have to know about your neighbors. You have to read about people and understand the commonalities between all of us, as well as some of the things that make us different.
[32:00] It’s tackling a topic that is so complex, but in a way that kids can understand. And then you could draw those parallels and have those conversations.
[32:19] People can jump onto our website, https://www.jambobooks.com/, and there you can choose whether you're doing a gift subscription or a subscription for someone in your household. We definitely have people that give them as gifts for birthdays and holidays, for baby showers. And there you choose the child's age group for reading level.
[38:07] With Jambo Books, we are really playing a long game. We are hoping that the members who are kids today will grow up reading books about people of all different backgrounds. And when those kids grow up, they will be much better. They will be in a much better place too.
[41:05] We are hoping to make a real impact on the publishing industry itself. What we find is that it’s very hard to source books about children of color that are more than maybe a year or two old because they go out of print very quickly.
Episode Resources
Quotes From Episode 44
“For me it was very important that children of color could see themselves blooming where they're planted and that your story doesn't take place necessarily in China or in India or in a country in Africa, that your story can take place here where you are and you belong here.”
“It was really important to us to normalize the experience of being a child of color, full of joy or fear of, you know, a dog or whatever it is that they're afraid of in that particular story.”
“I was looking for a subscription like this because I knew the books weren't going to be super easy to find. And I wanted someone to deliver them to my front doorstep.”
“I think that if we can engage in the very difficult conversations that we can move forward, we have to be willing to engage in them. We have to be willing to be uncomfortable sometimes. And it all starts with hello.”
“Our kids learn what we value and what's important by what's around them. So if you never see yourself reflected in the media, in art, in books, then you get a sense of where your importance is on a scale with those who are represented.”
“Books are such an incredible vehicle with our children to get those conversations going.”
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