Author Showcase, Q&A With Darnellie Travers
Darnellie Travers is a Haitian-American author and educator who creates educational books for children.
A little over two weeks ago, while I was killing time before I checked out the Magor League Table Tennis (MLTT) event at the local convention center, I got a brief Q&A with a book author named Darnellie Travers. I made sure to interview Darnellie as she is a woman and a person of color, plus it is Black History Month (BHM).
On February 10th, Darnellie Travers visited the local library to do a book signing for her recent books such as My First Shapes and Colors Book. There’s a second version of it, too, which further teaches children more about shapes and colors.
Travers told me that My First Shapes and Colors Book is her first published book. The idea came from her 7-year-old son who inspired her to write this book as a way to teach shapes and colors to children. After she completed this book, Travers went on to create two more books.
With three books already completed, Travers is working on three new projects.
It’s a team effort by the mother and son duo.
The son, who helped Travers create the books, was supposed to be at the event, but he decided to stay home and play educational games on Prodigy.
The inspiration behind the first book came from gearing the son towards education. Her son is learning something new each month and the boy’s love of learning was the inspiration behind Travers’ first book.
From planets to dinosaurs, Travers’ son wants to learn what the world and beyond has to offer. That’s good because the more knowledge we have, the better thinkers we become. By the time he was three, Travers’ son had already known all of the shapes and colors.
His love of learning was the ultimate inspiration.
This reinforces what Dr. Vincent Adejumo, who I saw the Tuesday night before speak about Rosewood and Ocoee, said about the importance of libraries and why we need to be concerned about the political crusade (by groups like Moms for Liberty) to get books banned at public & school libraries.
Invaluable knowledge and wisdom come from books.
Books cultivate a love of learning. To ban books is to kill that love of learning which has devastating consequences for generations to come.
I also had to bring up diversity and representation, too. Travers said that representation was very important because if you see people like yourself doing something, you will be inspired to do it as well.
Representation matters!
Echoing what Adejumo said about storytelling, Travers also said that it is a potent tool.
Travers brought up Albert Einstein who believed that storytelling was crucial to expanding the mind and the imagination. When you combine imagination and critical thinking, the possibilities are boundless.
Storytelling helps people become great thinkers and inventors.
You can buy Travers’ books online at Amazon in either a physical or Kindle version. If you are a parent with young kids or are planning to be a first-time parent, definitely buy her books as they will help your children a lot.
Aside from being a book author, Travers is an educator who specializes in language arts.