Bigger Than Me

Children discover the impact they can have when they band together in this picture book ode to how solidarity lifts everyone up.

Siblings Luna and Zion are feeling a bit overwhelmed. Big words keep rushing at them: Homelessness. Pandemic. Inequality. Recession. Unemployment.

They don’t understand the words, but grown-ups do, and the siblings can see how upset the words make them. Wanting to understand the words themselves, Luna and Zion spell them out with building blocks, but the words’ weight sends the blocks tumbling. So they recruit other kids to help them. Many hands make light work, and as the words are constructed from any materials the children can find, the words themselves grow lighter, and change: Equality. Kindness. Compassion. Liberty. Democracy. Freedom. Hope.

The words are still big, but not as heavy—ones everyone can carry, if we carry them together.

Erica Simone Turnipseed is a teacher, social justice activist, novelist, and essayist, as well as the author of Bigger Than Me. Originally from Brooklyn, she holds BA and MA degrees in anthropology from Yale and Columbia, respectively, and now lives in Washington, DC.

Kara Bodegón is a cartoonish-illustrator, author, and music journalist who has a thing for sharks. She lives in Manila, Philippines.