Para Pens Tale For The Child She Was

When Mahogany Lowery went on field trips as a child, she needed an adult with her to give her insulin and make sure her blood sugar levels were not too high or too low. Her diabetes hospitalized her every year, she recalled.

The New Haven native has spun those memories into fiction with her first book, Greatness Over The Rainbow. The book, to be released on Amazon on Friday, follows four kids living in a city like New Haven who experience chronic illness and the deaths of family members and overcome those challenges.

“I wanted to focus on inner-city kids. I wanted them to know that whether they have a single parent or both parents but are growing up in the inner city, they can always make it,” Lowery said. ​“They don’t have to fall into stereotypes and stay living in the stereotypes.”

Becoming A Role Model

Lowery, now an assistant teacher for children with autism at Brennan-Rogers Magnet School, grew up in public housing near Exit 8 and in Beaver Hills. She lived with her mother and grandparents; she saw her father on the weekends.

“When I was growing up, I thought my living situation was amazing. I was living with my grandparents and was so close to my family. I didn’t know that wasn’t the norm,” Lowery said.

Greatness Over The Rainbow has been writing itself in Lowery’s mind for years. The turning point came a year ago when she was a counselor at the youth education and recreation program LEAP.

Lowery said that she had her laptop open and was planning art projects for her group. The colorful images sparked thoughts about what her book would look like. She decided that she needed to publish her book soon so her students at LEAP would know an author from the same background as themselves.

“I was always talking about education to the kids. They will be able to say, ​‘I knew her. She did excellent in school and she wrote a book. I know I can do x, y and z in my life,’” Lowery said.

Lowery always knew that she wanted to go to college and focus her career on children, she said. Her father has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and her mother works in the graduate office of Southern Connecticut State University. As a teen, she saw older cousins selecting HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities) in Atlanta and North Carolina.

Now, nearing 30, Lowery has bachelor’s and master’s degrees and is working on getting certified to switch from being a paraprofessional to an official teacher.

Your Illustrator Is On Instagram

Lowery worked with friends to make Greatness Over The Rainbow happen. A high school friend has a publishing company, Book Stop, LLC. A friend from college, also a New Haven native, does graphic design.

The publisher friend, Chardonee’ Avelar, had long encouraged Lowery to write a book. The artist friend, Carly Barnes, jumped into book illustration for the first time after Lowery reached out to her on Instagram.

The group’s finished product debuted on Amazon on Friday. Lowery’s own copy arrived a few days ahead of the release, to the amazement of her children. Her daughter is one and a half years old and her stepson is 12.

“He was happy to hold the book in his hand, to see the pages,” Lowery said.

Like Lowery’s stepson, one of Greatness Over The Rainbow​‘s main characters, Amanda, has asthma. Lowery drew on her own experience with diabetes to write about the character’s frustrations with the disease.

“When you have a disease at a young age, you don’t understand it,” Lowery said. ​“She can’t be outside too long and she can’t do the activities she wants to do. She just wants to have a normal childhood.”

Like Lowery as a child, Amanda has an clear sense of her goals despite the frustration. She wants to become a doctor.

Another character, Michael, has autism. Though sweet and kind, he is struggling to focus in class. At the same time, he has to navigate the death of his father.

Lowery is planning to follow the four characters through two more books as they attend middle school and prepare to go to college.

Yet even with a fourth book unfurling in her mind — this one on young women writing down their goals — Lowery does not want to write full time. She said that she likes the hands-on experience of teaching and supporting students. Her non-writing career goal is to instead become a dean of student affairs at Southern, to follow in the footsteps of a dean who encouraged her as an undergrad there.

Where To Find It

Greatness Over The Rainbow is arriving in the world without a launch party, for now.

“I’m too scared, because of corona,” Lowery said with a laugh.

Instead, readers can order a copy of the book from Lowery’s website, complete with a free bookmark. Readers can also order ​“Greatness” water bottles and shirts.

When the Covid-19 pandemic dies down, Lowery also plans to pitch Greatness Over The Rainbow to New Haven Public Schools and public schools in the surrounding areas. Then, students just like she was can read about who they can become.