Sara Michaels has worn glasses “all my life,” and she has insisted (and we’re delighted that she did) that parents be offered the option to give their children glasses in Ruler of Space.
Sarah says that as a child she was always drawn to characters in books that wore glasses and described them as “total confidence boosters”.
It has always been our goal to engage children’s interest in books by inserting them into the action with our personalized children’s books. Before, kids with multicultural families might only have found characters similar to themselves in a couple books, and even then the book was likely to be about having a multicultural family. In “If I Were Big“, your adventure is the story, and the fact that your family is made up of a white mom and a black dad is just the way things are.
Now we can say the same thing about kids with glasses. In other books, most characters with glasses will at the very least remark upon their glasses and how other kids tease them for wearing them. At the most, that conflict will drive the entire story. I think a diet of such books, far from convincing a child of their self-worth, will focus them on how they must combat negative assumptions about themselves and their glasses.
In Ruler of Space, wearing glasses isn’t what the story is about. Ruling Space is! You just happen to be wearing glasses like you always do and it doesn’t slow you down one bit. You’re still awesome. You’re still funny. You’re still unique. What gift could be more affirming than being judged the coolest person in the entire Galaxy, glasses and all?
