Abolition is Love

What can abolition mean for a child? How can it help them dream a different future for their community?

In Abolition is Love, Amelie learns about collective care, mutual aid, and abolitionist ideas as they help their parents get ready for the annual Prisoners’ Justice Day. Amelie explores big concepts like love, justice, and care, and learns how we can build a different world together through the small choices we make every day. They learn to resolve a conflict with their cousin who plays differently than they do, they help their Papa plan a more accessible park for all, and collectively they create a beautiful banner. Amelie is also excited to hold their own candle at the rally, and they look forward to this big kid moment–to join the ranks of activists calling for justice and abolition.  The book explores possibilities for hope, and offers ideas for caring for each other and building communities rooted in social justice and safety for all people. Parents and teachers can engage young readers with the expansive illustrations and prompts that suggest new ways of being in the world together.

Abolition is Love!

Syrus Marcus Ware is an Assistant Professor at the School of the Arts, McMaster University. A scholar, visual artist, activist, curator and educator, Syrus uses painting, installation and performance to explore social justice frameworks and Black activist culture. His work has been shown widely across Canada in solo and group shows, and his performance works have been part of local and international festivals. He is part of the Performance Disability Art Collective. Syrus is cofounder of Black Lives Matter Canada and a core-team member of Black Lives Matter – Toronto. Syrus is curator of the That’s So Gay show and a co-curator of Blackness Yes!/Blockorama. Syrus has published widely and is the co-editor of the best-selling Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada (URP, 2020), and the illustrator of the children’s book I Promise written by Catherine Hernandez. Syrus lives in Tkaronto (also known as Toronto, Canada)

Alannah Fricker is an abolitionist community organizer, visual artist, caregiver, harm reduction activist, and second-generation settler living in Toronto/Tkaronto in the territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, Anishnabeg, Chippewa, Haudenosaunee and Wendat peoples. She is a founding member of Students for Harm Reduction, the Toronto Prisoners’ Rights Project (TPRP), and the Abolition Coalition, and is actively involved in a wide variety of mutual aid, popular education, direct action, and creative arts projects focused on building a world where we keep each other safe without police and prisons. Alannah is a Registered Social Worker and is currently completing her Master’s of Arts in Social Justice Education with a focus on Black Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.