Successful Black Parenting magazine jumped into the world of animation and expanded it to include board books for children based on the animations we produce. All of the animations have main characters that are Black. “We know that representation matters and it is important to inject this diversity, not only into the animation world but the literary world as well,” said Janice Robinson-Celeste, the author of the initial books being launched under the imprint of SBP Publishing. The acronym is for Successful Black Parenting.

“The cool thing is that anyone can buy and learn from our books. You don’t have to be brown to have books with brown people in your home,” said Robinson-Celeste. “I hope that all parents and their children will appreciate Big Kids.” Robinson-Celeste is also an early childhood specialist, a mom, former parent educator, teacher, daycare owner, published parenting author, owner of Ethnic Animations, and is the publisher of Successful Black Parenting magazine.

The back of the book reads, “Come along on a journey through the jungle and to the big city! Children will discover dinosaurs, airplanes, trains, and more while learning they are bigger than they know. This book is for small children to feel empowered in a big, big world.”

Big Kid helps young children with social-emotional development and contributes to positive mental health. Robinson-Celeste said, “The book’s concept comes from a public speaking technique that professionals use before speaking to a crowd. When you’re feeling intimidated, you instead imagine yourself as something bigger to feel empowered so that you can handle anything.” Whether it’s dealing with bullying, anxiety or family problems, children often need this type of empowerment and encouragement to manage in a big, and tough world.

In addition, because of the simple storyline and repetition, young children can easily ‘read’ the book and recognize simple words, which helps them develop necessary pre-reading skills. Read the book and watch the video with your children whenever they are feeling helpless and need to be empowered.

Robinson-Celeste said that a week-long curriculum has been created based on the book for ages two through six and it will soon be available to educators as a companion to the book.

The animation by the same name, Big Kid is available for free on YouTube. The book retails for $9.99. You can order Big Kid, the book now on Amazon.com. It is available in most bookstores nationwide. If you don’t see it there, ask the bookstore manager to order it for you. Here is the ISBN number –