This episode features Cirea Strode, a program manager at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, who blends her professional work with her passion for supporting children’s emotional health. Her new book, Willow B: Big Feelings, Big Wins, helps children ages four to eight better understand and talk about their emotions. Throughout the conversation, parents are encouraged to support children as they learn to navigate their emotions, reminding us that every feeling, whether big or small, is an important part of growing up.

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Willow B: Big Feelings, Big Wins

You are listening to Written in the Stars Books and Beyond, where hosts from the LCC Library sit down with writers, publishers, entrepreneurs, and literary enthusiasts of all types. Join your hosts, Ami Ewald, Robin Moore, John Szilagyi, and Abby Tebeau as we explore the very heart of the written word.

Welcome to Written in the Stars Books and Beyond. I'm Robin and Moore, joined by my co host, John Solaeji. Hello. Hello.

Today, we're thrilled to welcome a very special guest, Sariya Strode, program manager with Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and a leader shaping better outcomes for our youth. She's also a Lansing Board of Education member, author, and entrepreneur, using her voice to champion equity, wellness, and community change.

Sareya, welcome. It is such a joy to finally have you here with us today.

Thank you so much for having me. I am so thankful to be here. This is awesome.

Wonderful. So we're glad to talk to you about all the things that are happening. So let's talk about this book that you have going on right now.

It's all around the community. What sparked the idea for Willow B. Big Feelings, Big Wins.

And for those who haven't read it yet, could you give us a quick overview of what will it be Big Feelings and Big Wins is about? Yes.

So it is exactly the name Big Feelings, Big Wins. It's really geared for our children, our youth from ages 4 to 8 years old, who experience different types of emotions. So Willow B.

Is the main character and it is her first day of school and she goes through all of the emotions of your first day, from being nervous to meet friends, initiating play, feeling those feelings of scared or sad, thinking. You know, it's hard to be a kid. And so Willow B. Is processing all those emotions for the readers. I actually came up with the name Willow B.

In honor of my husband's grandmother. Her name was Willie B.

And she was a huge person in my personal growth, even as a teenager about, you know, expressing your emotions and being in tune with who you are and what you need. And so Willoughby is going through her first day of school with Sonny the Spark, which is the Sunny the Spark on the COVID with her.

And he kind of helps her process through those emotions. It's kind of like your intuition or that self talk. And Sunny the Spark talking her through the emotions of her first day. It's really cool.

I love that in the book you use colors to go with different feelings. What made you want to use colors to represent feelings?

I know for me, shout out to Michigan State University. Go green. Go white. I studied in undergrad for the human developmental family studies program with child development education.

And so a big thing that we used to do when you're working with children and processing emotions is to get them to relate to something they can.

And so when you're doing feelings work or self or parts work, it's really easy to have the children pick a color that makes them feel like the feeling that they have.

I love that. It's wonderful how you're utilizing what you've learned at Go Gringo White. I love that colors.

So you work with the juvenile justice division of the state of Michigan Human and health service Department. Now, how does that work relate to your book?

You know, I feel like even though I work with our juvenile children sometimes, I hate to say it, but they're often the forgotten population. Right? They're the population that may have done something wrong or may have landed them in a certain space, but they're all children at heart.

Some of our kids are really young at heart. And so processing emotions, sometimes that helps lessen that criminogenic risk for youth. And I think that also plays a shape.

The thing for me is I try to do things that I'm passionate about, but also that has meaning behind it. And so everything that I do kind of stays within that purpose. For me, writing a children's book, I have little children.

I have always been an advocate for young people and then also working with the state. I started off as a social worker, and so I've kind of made my way through and even to now being on the board of education.

And so education is, like, really a pillar for me. And I think if you start having conversations with children while they're young, it helps them process people better when they're older.

So true.

You mentioned you have young kids at home, and that was part of your inspiration for writing this book. How did you find it? Was writing a book for children as opposed to writing for adults, Was it challenging, or what was that process like?

Well, when you're writing a children's book, you have to really think about the kid, Kind of bring yourself back to a child. What are some of the things you might have felt?

Or even in the book, I have activity pages in the back where parents can utilize these tools to get more information out of their children. Kind of like Sunny the spark is helping her throughout her day. So what will your Sunny say? Right. Who is your Sunny the Spark?

What words do you need to hear?

And I think for me, you know, we have a lot of big feelings in my house, and so even reflecting on my own personal experiences with my children, you kind of got to take a lot of your life lessons and turn it into something to share, you.

Know, that leads me to ask, what did you learn about yourself through the writing process?

You know, patience, patience, patience, patience. I feel like some people rush their process. When you're writing, you don't give yourself. You want to hurry up and get it out. And I felt like that.

I felt like I was, like, beating the clock. Nobody knew that I was writing a book. That's another thing. I'm very secretive about my passion. If it's something I'm like, newly exploring.

And so nobody knew that I was writing a book. And so for me, it was like, I need to hurry up and get this out, because I'm so excited about it. But then I had that fear of like, hey, this is new.

I've never written a children's book before.

And I think anytime you're writing, I think there was spaces where I kept rechanging pages and like, wait a minute, I'm not sure if that part connects. And you want it to be perfect.

And so I think the patience part for me was definitely a learning curve, especially when you're dealing with having to get, like, different mock ups and you want your character to look a certain way. And I wanted her skin tone to be a certain color so she can be relatable and all those things. So we had a lot of back and forth. It was a process.

Did you know, like, from way back you wanted to write a book? Or is this a fairly new passion? Or have you always kind of been wanting to be a writer?

Always, always wanted to be a writer. Back in high school, I would enter competitions, poets and poems. And I knew that I was going to write something. I just didn't know when.

And so I pushed myself a little bit. And you kind of get out of your comfort zone when you're writing.

I think at one point I was like, if it only goes to my house and my kids read it, you know, I made a difference in the world, right? And then now it's know, in Barnes and Noble and Walmart and Amazon and, you know, in the capital area district libraries in town.

And so it really has picked up really great traction. And I remember saying, if it's not that good, at least my kids will have it. Like, it'll be at my house.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wonderful.

Yeah. So is Willow B. Big feelings, big wins. The start of a series or a part of a larger vision for children's emotional and wellness books for you?

Absolutely. We are actually working on two. We are working on book number two. I really feel confident about this one. It's gonna definitely be bestseller.

I think it's going to go along the lines of grief and emotion for children, I think, myself included.

I recently lost my dad May of this year, and me and my daughter have been going to Ellie's place, another place that also partnered with me when I released my book. But now being able to go and enjoy that space to help with grief share has been very instrumental.

So this process with the Willowby book two is going to focus more about the grief of a child.

She's not gonna explicitly say that anybody passed in the family, but she's gonna walk down the hallway, for example, and say, you know, the house feels quieter today. And she'll be at school and she'll be like, you know, I broke my crayon. Why does everything keep breaking?

Or why does everything keep leaving from me? Right. And just kind of processing all those emotions. And Sunny Spark will be right there, of course. And then she'll remember the kiss on her wrist.

And that's kind of gonna be like something of maybe a parent that used to do with their kid, like kiss on the wrist and make them remember all the memories. So it kind of goes through this journey of that with grief in young children.

And she goes through all the emotions of grief, from sad, from anger, from excitement, from nervousness, goes through all those emotions.

Wow. Thanks for sharing that with us. So the book title pairs big feelings and big wins.

What message do you hope children and families take away from that phrase?

Yeah, I feel like no matter what you're going through or whatever your feeling is, you can always process that and turn it into something positive. I have a toddler, so Tantrums. Right. They always say terrible too, but I don't say terrible too. I think it's just the learning curve of 2.

And for me, kids have really strong emotion because they're in that part of their development where they're really trying to focus and figure out how does these parts work. And, you know, mine and me. And they're so, you know, testing on what they feel, but that's a part of their development.

And so really just shaping that into, like, our future leaders. Like, you can have big feelings, but we gotta process this.

And you can take that energy and be amazing when you're 21, but right now we can't have cookies for breakfast.

I was. I was kind of thinking more about the activities that you put in the book. There's a nice kind of selection of them in the back.

I could see parents using them. I could see teachers using them, kind of. How do you want your readers and parents to use these?

And how can they be helpful for folks out there who might be working with kids, whether they're their own or some classroom?

I think for me, that was the big thing. I put the activity pages in the back because I feel like it's something that you can process more with. It can be something to have, like activities.

I think family time is very important, no matter what your family looks like. And so just encouraging that time together. And then there's a lot of people who are parenting for the first time. Like, I'm an educator.

You know, I have the background in the education, but sometimes even my kid I have to question. Right. Because everybody's different and you don't know what the books will say until you are actually in that experience.

And so I really wanted to create something that gives parents a space that maybe don't have the words or, you know, it's their first time parenting. And what does this look like? And why is this kid crying all the time? Or, you know, what's happening?

What can I do to help get some more information out of my kid? You know, I think I talked recently about it's a difference when your kids coming home from school and you say, hey, what'd you do today?

And they're like, nothing. How was your day? Good. No, it's a difference when you say, who did you sit by at lunch today?

Yes.

Right. Who was very excited in your class today? Was somebody overly talking? Tell me about your friends. What did they have on? Did you like their clothes?

What are you feeling like? There's different ways that you can ask a question that never puts you in a space to just get on one short answer.

And so that's really what I try to do.

That's great.

That's great advice. I'm excited because I'm looking at my co host because. Can I share?

You can.

He's a new parent to other three months.

Yeah, he's three months old.

Yes, three months old.

So we're all excited here for John because John is amazing and we've worked together for a long time.

We have, we have.

And so we will be, you know, utilizing this book and these kinds of things, I'm sure a of lot lot over the coming years, which kind of something that's a ways down the road for us still. But you set the book in Willow's first day of school. And so kind of, why did you choose that setting and that day for this book?

I felt like for me it was an introduction of something and an introduction that every kid has the first day of school, whether you're going to be online and you're homeschooling, you still have that first day of school.

And then education is very important to me and my family and so empowering those to be excited to go to school because three and four year olds are reading this book and they're not there yet. Right. They may or may not be in preschool or not. And so that excitement of what do I have to look forward to when I go to school to get my education?

Who can I connect with? Who can I make friends with? And so I really was very thoughtful with getting the background.

Like, I was very supportive of making sure that I had different types of children in the book. If you go to one of the pages when the kids are playing outside, there's even a kid in a wheelchair.

And I did that on purpose because I want people that don't look like me to connect or your friends can look different. We could have different abilities and all those things. So I wanted to really include that into that space.

And you know, first day of school, we all go through that first day of school and it has a nice space where you could have all these different types of emotions.

I want to give that to my 19 year old who just went off to school and she was feeling some emotions there and she was dealing with them. And I think this even at 19, right. Because it's the first day of something new, can't read that book.

Well, I think that's one of the strengths of this book, right? Is like, although it is a kid's book and it's set like on the first day of school, we all have, you know, big feelings and that kind of thing.

And so it's a really good read for everybody. And I think that goes back to reading this with a kid. Right.

And so that importance of reading to your child and like, have you been able to do that with your kids and then be able to share this as well?

Absolutely. So my daughter is 6. We've been reading for about over a year and so we try to incorporate reading in different spaces.

I have the belief that if you teach a child to read, they can do anything. They just got to learn how to read. If they can read, they can do anything. And so I have had my daughter read the book.

She gets excited about it, but she's at the point now where she's probably like, okay, mom, you know, she wants to read her new book. I think it's Pinkalicious. That's her favorite book. And. And so at night at our house, reading is very important. Education is very important to me.

I think I've said that. And so I have her read a book to my son.

Oh, wonderful.

He's two. And then I will read a book to her.

And so putting words in front of her, even having her sound them out, and just her practicing reading to my son and then I'm reading to her, it just kind of gives them something to look forward to. But also, she doesn't realize it.

I'm sharpening those skills, I think, too, for her to have to read to an audience, even if she's just reading to her brother, that's gonna build confidence in the child. She also gets a little bit nervous when there's bigger words. And I'll have to encourage her, like, it's okay, Mommy. Sound it out.

Let's sound it out together. And so that's like our time. You know, you have to find something that you can connect with your kids, and it can be your time.

And that's why I love everything about books. My mom was an avid reader growing up. I was an avid reader growing up. I think it's hilarious. Cause I'm showing my age.

But I think I was a part of, like, the Dolly Parton library, too, growing up and getting free books every month. And, you know, it's just amazing that they have those type of programs. And I remember reading all the Dr. Seuss books.

Oh, yes.

Every single one I had. I'm like, where are my books at now? Because Send them to my kids. But, you know, reading is just a big part of our lives.

Like, it's a big part of how we see the world, how we view things. And when you start that. That desire out in your children young, it'll grow.

And even with ourselves, like, as adults, you know, I'm always trying to ask people, what are you reading right now? Like, what. What's your interest? You know what? Because it sharpens your mind.

It does, it does.

So if Willoughby herself could give advice to children about handling big feelings, what do you think she would say?

I think Willow would say, say, it's okay to have a bad day. My favorite line in the book, I think, is at the very end, and it says, every day is a canvas, and I'm the artist.

And so you can process and you can feel however you want to feel, but it's up to you what you do with that. It's up to you where you go from this space.

Even as adults, I think we experience a lot of different emotions and we can get stuck there and we have to remind ourselves of how to overcome and get out of that space. Or what do you want it to look like the next time you experience this emotion? And so I think Willow would really say, I'm the artist, right?

I'm the artist of my day. I'm the artist of my feelings. And it's hard even as adults to manage our emotions.

Yes, it is, it is, it is.

So where can folks get the book or connect with you online or just learn more about it?

Oh, absolutely. It's on Amazon, it is on Walmart, it's on Barnes and Noble. So it's been around in the marketplace. And so I'm excited to share.

I cannot wait to Willoughby, Book two is going to come out soon. But yes, I'm on social media. Saria Strode, you can always find me. But if you Google the book, it'll definitely come up.

And then families out there that may say, I can't buy it right now. And we understand that all of the Capital area district libraries in this area house at least two copies of this book.

So you can go and rent it and check out our libraries. My kids love our libraries, particularly the south side library. They love that one.

That's a nice one.

That is a nice one. Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm sure we're kind of biased, but yes, libraries are a great thing. So thank you for that Plug for Libraries.

I really do.

I really do. Sareya, thank you for sharing this space with us today.

To our listeners, you can find Sareya's contact information and additional links in our show notes. Thank you for listening to Written in the Stars on LCC Connect.

You have been listening to Written in the Stars books and beyond. Visit LCC Edu Library to find the titles discussed in this episode.

You can find previous episodes of Written in the Stars and other LCC connect [email protected] and in the words of Miguel D', Unamuno, I hope, reader, we shall meet again and we shall recognize each other.