Gahanna author helps to increase equity for young readers
GAHANNA, Ohio (WCMH) – Our NBC4 Today “Author Series”, highlighting local authors of color writing books for children, continues with Debbie Rigaud.
Authors like Rigaud, of Gahanna, are helping to increase equity for our youngest readers, middle schoolers, and teens.
“I began writing as a child. I kept journals, and I filled journals,” said Rigaud. “It was just my way of understanding the world.”
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Rigaud’s love of writing continued through college and into the start of her career at Seventeen magazine. It was at the magazine that she developed a love for younger readers and in 2007, she was asked to contribute to a book specifically for them.
“It was actually short stories. Three short stories for girls of color. Because at that time, a lot of teen girls, like teen Black girls and Latina girls, were picking up books just because they saw representation of a Black or Latina person on the cover,” said Rigaud. “But the book was inappropriate content-wise, and they wanted age-appropriate material for those girls at that time.”
Since then, Rigaud has published nearly a dozen books for teens, middle schoolers and now produces picture books.
“There are different lenses that you need to understand when you switch categories like that,” said Rigaud. “In the middle grade space, it’s very sudden, awareness of social status and your identity. And in the teen space, you have to understand that they’re pushing against adulthood and they’re a slew of tensions that come with that because they’re still under their parents’ supervision. Through those prisms, one story can be told in entirely different ways and you have to know how to approach that.”
Rigaud, in part, credits her journaling for her ability to do that.
“All of those times writing out my feelings, and being honest about those feelings, I did develop a certain style of writing and that stayed with me and has served me throughout my career,” said Rigaud.
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While she is proud to be writing great books about girls and people of color, she also stresses the importance of people that don’t look like her characters reading her stories.
“I think it’s great to read outside of your experience. I think that’s something that people are grappling with now. And it’s something that people are missing out on,” said Rigaud. “When you don’t try to expand your reading, it kind of shrinks your world a little bit. And it’s a tool for compassion and kindness too. Because think about what it takes to make that leap, and people of color have been doing it a long time. And so it’s a part of you that you might be missing out on.”
To learn more about Debbie Rigaud and her collection of book titles, visit https://www.debbierigaud.com/.
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