Everyone Can Do Something

By Meena Harris

Meena Harris is the Founder and CEO of Phenomenal and the New York Times bestselling author of Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea. She currently resides in San Francisco with her partner and two daughters.

“No one can do everything, but everyone can do something,” my grandmother used to say. She was no stranger to protests and political rallies, but she also was a great example of living out everyday acts of resistance. She taught me I should always try to make an impact, wherever I was, however I could—big or small.

In 2016, I became a mom. As new parents, my partner and I searched far and wide for children’s literature that reflected the diversity and complexity of our household and lives. We were surprised and frustrated by how hard it was to find those books to fill our kids’ library; often we were forced to change pronouns from “he” to “she” or “they,” and sometimes we even resorted to coloring a white characters’ skin with a brown marker.

In 2018, the year our youngest daughter was born, there were as many kids’ books published with animals as main characters as there were books with Black, Latinx, Asian or Native main characters combined. That same year, only about one in five children’s books were written or illustrated by people of color.

So I decided that — although I couldn’t fix the entire publishing industry — I could do my small part to make positive change. And this year, with my grandmother’s words guiding me, I published my first book, Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea. It’s based on a true story from the childhood of my mom, Maya Harris, and aunt, Kamala Harris, and their quest to build a playground in the empty courtyard of their apartment building. “No one can do everything, but everyone can do something” is the central lesson of that book—and I hope we can all learn something from Kamala and Maya’s story, both on the page and in real life.

As the mom of two Black daughters, I feel a particular obligation to help diversify by-lines and content in the right way: without tokenization or color-blindness. On the surface, I see how some might think that an ode to sameness might seem safe and age-appropriate. But when we’re helping children understand how people from different walks of life can coexist and be celebrated in their own unique ways, prioritizing common ground too often obscures or erases uncommon experiences.

The inspiration for my second kids’ book came shortly after my first book was published, when one of the women in my family was criticized for being “too ambitious,” and that harmful rhetoric was amplified by the media. I was raised in a family that taught me “ambitious” was a good word, and of course we all know this critique is almost never leveled against men. As hard as I’ve tried to raise my daughters with these same values, I still worry about the messages our society is sending the next generation. So, once again, I decided to take my grandma’s words to heart and do something about it. I rolled up my sleeves and got to work on Ambitious Girl, a story that follows a little girl as she learns from her family to reclaim and redefine her purpose in the world. It’s the kind of story that kids of all genders — and frankly adults, too — need, especially right now.

I’ve been heartened to find that, over the past several years, there’s been a burst of diverse, intersectional children’s literature. But it’s still not enough; we have a long way to go to achieve full representation in kids’ books. The more we each try to do our part — whether writing or illustrating children’s books of our own, supporting local bookstores and filling our shelves with diverse titles, or sharing these stories in the classroom — the brighter the future of children’s literature will be.

Meena Harris was born into a family of strong women whose legacy continues to inspire her. Her grandmother, Shyamala Gopalan, was a cancer researcher and civil rights activist; her mother, Maya Harris, is a lawyer and policy expert, and her aunt, Kamala Harris, is a United States Senator.

Meena is a lawyer and entrepreneur. In 2017 she founded the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign, a female-powered organization that brings awareness to social causes. She currently resides in San Francisco with her partner and two daughters.