Jacqueline Woodson Has A Message For Every Kid Who’s Ever Felt Like An Outsider

The first day of school is a gut-check for everyone involved: the trepidatious kid walking into a new classroom, the parents weighed down with worry and hope over their child having a good year, the teachers toting the enormous responsibility of nurturing another group of young minds. Jacqueline Woodson understands what a huge time it is in a family’s life, and that’s exactly why she anchored The Day You Begin there.

Now, the National Book Award-winning author (Brown Girl Dreaming, Each Kindness) has teamed up with PBS to adapt her beloved picture book into a vibrant one-hour animated special as part of the network’s back-to-school slate. It follows four kids, each an outsider for their own reason, as they discover the things that make you feel different are things worth sharing.

We caught up with Woodson about the new special and more, from what kids actually need to hear when they feel like they don’t fit in, to how her own children taught her to write with more joy. Oh, and why a message about kindness and empathy feels more timely than ever.

Scary Mommy: The first day of school is huge for kids and the parents dropping them off. Why anchor the story there?

Jacqueline Woodson: For that reason. It's funny because it's so scary for young people — the unknown. And it's also very scary for parents. So, I think with good shows that are speaking to young people, they also need to speak to the parent. There is that sense of when we let our young people go off into this unknown, we have to first guard our own trepidation so that they don't see it, but also know that they're these little human beings who are going to have their own fears and experiences. So it felt important to me. It felt like such a milestone.

SM: Each of the four kids feels like an outsider for a different reason. When a kid genuinely feels like they don't belong, is "you belong" ever actually enough? What do they need to hear?

JW: I think they need to hear how amazing they are. I think they need to know that every time their body enters a space, that space is better because of it. That they're a gift to that space, that each young person is a gift to wherever they are, and that they're bringing something amazing and different and powerful and beautiful into that space. So yeah, they belong there and also the space should be grateful to have them in it.

SM: You mentioned your kids. They’re grown-up now, right? How old?

JW: Toshi is now 24, and Jackson is 18. He just graduated from high school.

SM: Has watching them go through school changed the way you write about it?

JW: It has. I think one thing when you look at my early writing, it's not as joyful in some ways. It's sort of melancholy. I think what my kids have given me is more of a sense of humor, even though they say I'm not funny, but they have really showed me. I remember my daughter ... right before the pandemic, so she was a junior in high school. It felt like a lot was going on in the world, and I was like, "How are young people dealing with all of this?" And she's like, "You know what? At the end of the day, I'm 16, so I'm going to have my best life." I thought that was so true, that they're going to be resilient. They're going to still be 15 and 13 and 16 and 18 and all the ages inside these experiences.

And here we are as adults dooming and glooming it and seeing the woe because we're on the other side of that young joy. So they've definitely taught me to remember joy and to remember that, even when they're deeply insecure and manifesting all that, they also have a very strong sense of themselves that I don't say is because of me and my beloved's mothering. I think it's because of what they come into the world with.

SM: You’re working with PBS on this as part of their back-to-school slate. What has that been like, being part of this very seminal kind of time with them?

JW: It sounds so cliche that it's a dream come true to work with PBS. I mean, I feel like even if I say it, I'm doing that humble brag. You can't say it without feeling like you're flaunting it. But it's been lovely. I think the people at PBS are as lovely as the shows they create. They've always made me feel really safe in that working environment. I've done other stuff inside film and TV, but it's always felt more Hollywood, like, where's the money at? How are we going to blow this up? Where are the stars? PBS is like, how are we going to make this the best show it can possibly be? And how is it going to feel inviting to the most young people that it possibly can feel inviting to? So that has been amazing.

They are so careful in that we have a Korean character, and we have a character who is on the autism spectrum. And then we have Rigoberto, who's from Venezuela. With every character, they made sure to bring in consultants from everything, from the language to the posture, to the ways of speaking, to the food, just so that no young person watching it can say, "Wait, that's not right." Because when they say that, it means you've missed me, and therefore, I'm not enough. And we never want young people to feel that way.

SM: Love to hear that! You say every difference is a strength, which is such a beautiful sentiment but also a hard thing to know when you're a kid who is different. How do you write towards that without it becoming a lesson or preachy?

JW: I feel like when I write, it always starts from this place of love, that I deeply believe it, that I'm not saying it as a soundbite. And I think that it's so much about specificity — you can't speak in broad terms ... when I'm writing, what I'm thinking about is the character on the page. The person, they feel like a person to me, and using all five senses. What is their favorite color? What do they like to smell? What are their fears? What are their trepidations? And then trying to see beyond that to the hope.

I don't know if you read Each Kindness, but I learned a long time ago that a book doesn't have to have a happy ending, but it has to have hope somewhere in it. That's kind of the throughline of everything, is that hope. It's going to be OK. So not trying to point out what is not OK, but let's look at that. Let's keep our eye on the prize that, at the end of the day, it's going to be OK.

SM: There's that throughline of “each kindness makes the world a little bit better” in Each Kindness. Why do you think that’s so important right now?

JW: Well, with this attempted erasure of giving kids models of empathy. Right? … There's the idea that we don't want our young people to have empathy — it just makes me feel like I don't understand the world we're living in right now.

I always cite Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, who was the godmom of multicultural literature — which, there’s also the attempted erasure of that — who said that kids need both mirrors and windows in their literature. They need mirrors so that they see reflections of themselves, so that they know that they're a part of a bigger world, that they're not the only one. And they also need windows so that they can see into the experience of others. And maybe we'll never have those experiences in real life, but we'll understand them. Those are the ways we build empathy. We learn that that person is not like me, and yet I care for them.

I think now more than ever, kids need to know that they're not alone. I also think empathy is innate, and there is this way in which books and shows allow kids to understand it and to strengthen it. A show like The Day You Begin or a book like The Day You Begin or Each Kindness is a tool for helping them articulate it. And as we watch in the actions of people, as we watch in the banning of books and the banning of the tools and the banning of DEI and programs that are helping people understand how to have empathy, this is timely. This is so timely. This is such a way of saying, You know what? What you're feeling is OK. What you're feeling is called care.

What we want is a community of care because with communities of care, we do better. The climate does better. Food systems do better. Playgroups do better. Your parents do better; they're not lonely. All of these ways in which community matters and care matters and understanding others matters, it's all in that show. It's all right there. This is how we take care of each other. You are entering your first day of school. You're not too young to do this. And these kids are very caring of each other.

SM: This story isn’t just for kids but also for the adults sending our kids back to school. What do you hope lands with them?

JW: First of all, that you're going to be OK, and it's OK to let your kid go and trust the system that you're sending them off into. I remember when I was a young parent, I would go into schools and the first thing I would look at is the classroom library, if the schools had classroom libraries, and if they didn't, the school library. There were some schools that didn't, and many schools thankfully still did. And I would look at what the books were on the shelves because that set the tone. If all the books were about nuclear families and people who didn't look like my kids or my kids' community, then I knew that wasn't the place for them because that library was telling me what tone the teacher was setting in the classroom or what tone the school was setting for the young people. And I wanted my kids to be safe.

So I do think that The Day You Begin for parents is about letting go and also about knowing that you can trust that system and that your kid is going to be safe in that system and that you can have engagement in that system. At the end of the show, the parents are all coming together, and these are parents that are going to grow up with their children. I still have my daughter's friends' parents who, even if my daughter's no longer friends with the kids, I'm still friends with the parents. I've known these parents since preschool.

So yeah, really know that you're sending a beautiful person out into a world that's going to love them, and that they're going to be loving inside of, hopefully.