“So it means a lot to me that Black children who are learning how to read can see a little boy who reminds them of themselves or someone who they know and family that looks like them, doing things that they care about and also for other kids to see their friends, people in their community, if they haven’t had any interaction with Black children before…this kind of counters some of the negative images that sadly are pushed sometimes in the media.” “This is for kids just learning how to read,” says the author. At her core, Lyons has always created stories that center Black children, and her new series, which tributes Black boy joy, is no exception. The first releases of the Ty’s Travels series All Aboard! and Zip, Zoom! illustrated by New York Times bestselling illustrator Nina Mata ( I Promise by LeBron James) are Lyons’ debut easy-readers. And so, I kind of saw it almost like a second master degree to really immerse myself in the art and craft of writing for kids.”

Thinking about how you can make the story stronger, how can you polish it, how can you serve your characters better. “You have to kind of steel yourself for the rejection and see that as just getting you closer to a yes. “It really was a period of study, trying, revising, and having a lot of faith because this is not a field for people who don’t believe that they can make it happen,” the former Ebony writer says. A few years later, she began querying her manuscripts and faced another realization about being an author. She also educated herself with, well, books.

So she joined the Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators, a nonprofit organization that acts as a network for everyone involved with literature for youth such as writers, illustrators, editors, publishers, agents, librarians, educators, and booksellers, etc. “Though I was trained as a feature writer, and, though I had written poetry for fun and other kinds of pieces over the years,” the Ty’s Travel’s (HarperCollins, September 1, 2020) author shares with So Booking Cool, “children’s writing is its own unique art form you need to study.” Among the first things award-winning author and founding member of the The Brown Bookshelf Kelly Starling Lyons did when she knew she wanted to write children’s books was study the craft, especially after realizing her seasoned background in print journalism was a different style of writing compared to children’s literature.

Ty's Travels by Kelly Starling Lyons