I met Charlotte children’s author Tameka Fryer Brown in person about two years ago at an event sponsored by the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, but I had been following her career as a children’s author since 2020 when I came across her book Brown Baby Lullaby. Originally published in January 2020, Brown Baby Lullaby received rave reviews for being a bedtime story that celebrates Black pride while also communicating parental love and acceptance.
I am pleased to report that Tameka has a new picture book titled All the Greatness in You that dovetails beautifully with Brown Baby Lullaby. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux released All the Greatness in You on November 5, 2024, complete with illustrations by Alleanna Harris. This new book is intended for children between the ages of four and eight, and it features a loving mother and her young son. The book is brimming with words of encouragement.
I contacted Tameka and asked her for more information about All the Greatness in You. Here is what she sent to me:
All the Greatness in You is technically the follow up to Brown Baby Lullaby, a picture book I published with Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in 2020, that is now also available as a board book. Before it had even been released, my editor, Joy Peskin, suggested I write a similar book that older kids could embrace once they had graduated from BBL, that would also be affirming and full of love. I immediately said yes because why wouldn’t I want to write such a book? It took a while, however, for me to figure out what I wanted to say, and how best to say it.
Around this time, my youngest daughter was deeply immersed in the college and scholarship application process. As anyone who has witnessed this up close and personal in recent years can attest, it is an extremely stressful, doubt-inducing time in a young person’s life, even for the young people who seem to have it all together. Maybe especially for them. I made it my business to be whatever my daughter needed to persevere—a confidante, an encourager, a shoulder. I did my best to find impactful words to relay how wonderful, and worthy, and more than enough she was, just as she was. In the midst of all this, it struck me that these were messages to be shared with all kids; those who were growing up, embarking on new experiences, and facing new challenges. You Are: Ode to a Big Kid ultimately became All the Greatness in You. It is described as “a joyful ode to the milestones and special moments in every little one’s life, empowering them with the confidence to try new things, ask questions, make mistakes, and most of all, believe in their own greatness.”
I recently had my launch party for the book at Park Road Books, one of my favorite indie bookstores in the Charlotte area. The consensus was that the words in All the Greatness in You were just as heartening and necessary for the adults in the room as they were for the young people. For a picture book author, I can think of no greater compliment than that.
I thank Tameka for sharing the backstory behind All the Greatness in You and for providing everyone in Storied Charlotte and beyond with such an affirming story.