Abby Cadet with the new book she wrote with her mom.
A mom who started seeking to fill her daughter’s home library with more books featuring Black characters has begun publishing some of those books herself — with her daughter.
New Haven mother and children’s book author Cindy J. Cadet, 40 and daughter Abby Cadet, 11, are co-authors of a children’s book series called “Kid Talk.” The picture books, for kids ages 4 to 10 years old, focus on real-life family issues that can be hard to talk about with youth, like divorce and parents arguing.
The first book of the series, released in 2020, is titled Living in Two Homes is Tough. It tells the story of a young girl struggling to tell her parent how she feels after they get a divorce.
This past week, Brennan Rogers School resource center coordinator Lensley Gay brought the author duo to students in grades second through fourth for a virtual reading.
Cadet’s books are written from a child’s perspective to highlight the different feelings of a child. The duo hope for the books to be a conversation starter for parents and kids that relate.
During the Brennan Rogers read-aloud, Cadet said several kids said that they have divorced parents and related to the main character.
The mom and daughter duo publish their books through their own publishing company, Brave Kid Press.
The second and most recent release in the series, Josiah’s Dilemma, was published last year. The book tells a story about a young boy dealing with his emotions about his parents, who argue at home frequently.
The book series is Cadet’s second since starting her writing career in 2011. Her first three books formed “Brownie Kid Series.”
Cadet published her first book, The Brownie Girl Adventures, in 2011, for her daughter’s first birthday. “It was originally going to just be a keepsake, until I realized there aren’t many books about Black and brown kids just having fun,” she said.
While raising Abby, Cadet realized how difficult it was getting to fill their at-home library with books that had characters that looked like Abby.
She was looking to fill Abby’s home library with “fun authentic black books,” she said. It wasn’t easy.
For the Brownie Kid Series books Cadet focused the stories on children of color going on adventures, bonding with family, forming friendships.
When getting her first series illustrated, Cadet said, she had to “put up a fight to get authentic Black kids” drawn for her book characters.
Instead of realistic kids of color, illustrators were offered Cadet brown stick figures.
Cadet, who was raised in West Haven, moved to New Haven’s Quinnpiac Meadows neighborhood in 2002.
Growing up Cadet, who is Haitian American, used reading and writing as an escape when dealing with tensions at home with her strict mother. She never met her biological father.
“When I was growing up children were seen and not heard,” she recalled.
In addition to Cadet’s two series, she has released a collection of 20 children’s writing journals, coloring books, and workbooks to encourage youth to get in the habit of expressing their feeling, set smart goals, and read affirmations.
“They’re to help brown kids get use to prioritizing self care and making mental health a priority,” she said.
Cadet also works as a co-parenting coach.
The workbooks and children’s journals aim to “minimize mental health issues within our community” she said.
“Everything I do is family centered,” she said.
After getting divorced in 2017, Cadet took a break from writing until the pandemic began.
During the first year of the pandemic, Abby and her mom began spending a lot more time together at home. The time together helped Cadet regain her motivation to write and gave her the idea to start a series that center talks she and her daughter had during the pandemic.
The duo created the children’s workbooks together based on Abby’s real life experiences and emotions at times.
While Cadet put together the writing, Abby helped to design characters, names, and settings. The book also features a letter Abby wrote to her father expressing her feelings about her parents ‘divorce.
“Sometimes as parents our intention is to do our best, but there are little things that we overlook sometimes,” she said.
She hopes her books and journals affirm children’s feelings and help families work through home conflicts/
Cadet’s long-term goal is to get the books and daily journals integrated into school curricula and help address misunderstood youth who are often labeled as “difficult” because they can’t concentrate in school or are acting out in class.
“Even while at school. kids worry about their parents and can be consumed by their home life,” she said.
With the journals, children can identify how they feel and express themselves in writing.
Since starting her writing career, Cadet has made author appearances at libraries and schools in New Haven and in Bridgeport.
She aims to inspire kids to “dream and think big.”
She encourages parents to take advantage of free resources like museums to expose youth to the bigger world around them. “As a parent, it’s all about creating a foundation to help children know they’re coming from homes,” she said.
Abby, who enjoys working on art, is considering doing the book illustrations in the future.
The duo’s next book will aim to start conversations about “blended families” involving step-parents and step siblings. Cadet expects to release it this summer.
Cadet has worked with students ranging from kindergarten to college as a substitute, trauma counselor, and in career services.
“It’s important to take young children seriously,” she said.
Abby said she also plans to become an animator.
When Abby isn’t helping her mom with writing books, she is usually making art, playing piano, or teaching herself to speak Italian.
She was 9 years old when she published her first book with her mom. She was even unofficially a part of making Cadet’s first series at age 5 by choosing the colors used throughout the third book. She also convinced Cadet to name a character in the book after her.
Cadet aims to teach her daughter and other youth that they have the “power and freedom to create a living out of what you love to do.”
Cadet encouraged parents to “be the parent that you always wanted when you were growing up” and to “approach conversations with your kids with an open mind.”
“It’s never too late to make a shift, no matter if you have a newborn, 13 year-old, or 20year-old,” Cadet said.
Cadet also has a Youtube channel that she uses to create videos about parenting tips and romantic relationships.
What a wonderful idea! We need more books like these, written from a child’s perspective, about tough issues that children have to face, to help them work through their issues that they struggle with. It’s also great that these books are featuring diverse children from different ethnic a racial backgrounds, because there aren’t nearly enough quality books out there with diverse people in them.