I was looking for a laundromat with a machine big enough to wash my rugs. I saw a sign and walked in with my load.
The door hadn’t closed on the snow behind me when I heard, over the rumbling machines and conversation, a loud “Grandma!”
A white three year old boy I’d never seen before jumped from his mother’s lap. “Grandma!” he shouted again and ran and gripped my legs. Then leaning back, he puckered up for a kiss.
You have to understand, I get called Mama, Mummy, Auntie, and Grandma in Sierra Leone all the time. No one, though, would ever mistake me for their own grandma. That small boy knew my story and he was ready to turn the page.
I won’t forget the lesson I learned that day. Every book we create for small children must depict lives they join without thinking and move on with, right from page one.
A Writing Place 