"I Am Wonderfully Me:" Book by actress Grace Byers

She is an accomplished actress and a best-selling children's book author using the power of storytelling to help kids believe in themselves. So her new book is called I Am Wonderfully Me and it celebrates what makes every child unique. We're talking about Grace Byers and she's here this morning to talk about the book, her inspiration for it, and her upcoming event in Decatur as well. So Grace, it's so good to have you here. Oh my gosh, thank you for having me. I'm thrilled. Of course. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Okay, congratulations on this. Thank you. Yes, This is going to be out soon. Let's talk about, about why we'll back it up a little bit. So this is the third book and what you describe as a series of children's books. Yes. What made you take the leap into becoming an author? That is such a great question. I, I was talking to my wonderful literary agent, Todd Schuster, and we were having a conversation about if there was like a book to write. And then we decided that based on how I was brought up based on my childhood, that a children's book is where we wanted to start. And really, I wanted to write a book that I wish that I had read when I was a child with the words and the representation that I think is so important. Affirmation, self-love, representation. If you hit it, the nail on the head with this book and all of them, truly. So again, this is I Am Wonderfully Me. Tell us what's inside. And I'll give you this, you know, behind the scenes, I asked you why this one, and you described it so beautifully when you said your other books kind of focus on the inside out and this one is more on the outside in. Yes, I think there's so many different levels to self-love and so I was so blessed to write I'm Enough and I Believe I Can, which really focuses on loving yourself from the inside out. And so when we were thinking about this third one, which I did not anticipate, I just started thinking about it and I was like, you know what, what if we started a book that celebrated you from the outside in and just focused on all the things that made us different and beautiful and unique. And then of course i had my son and so that kind of catalyzed the entire process to say to watch him how to watch how he discovered his own body and just what his body could do and so that really kind of was the main inspiration for the book i love it i love it i mean even just you know the the words that are inside let's this is just one of the pages guys my mouth what a smile my nose is just right and then the representation that's shown in all of the pictures as well as flipping through this at my desk and I was honestly I was just struck by by the words coming off the page and how beautiful the illustrations are yeah thank you thank you I am blessed uh to have had Keturah Bobo who was the original illustrator of my first two books work on those first two books and then she started working on this third one and halfway through she passed away and so that was really heartbreaking for me because we had such a wonderful artistic relationship and then I was really blessed to have Lizbeth Shako join us. I know it can be difficult for one illustrator to kind of jump in the shoes of the other. If anybody could do it, it was Lizbeth. And so it was really the right person. She had her own idea of adding different things like the albino child representation that's in there and so many other things. So really I have the beautiful work of two amazing illustrators on this book. I mean, so, so well done. And it's just, it's paired beautifully together, right? The words that are on the page and the pictures that you see that go along with it. Thank you. Just absolutely stunning. Let's talk about Saturday. You're going to be in Decatur. Yes. So I will be at the Brave and Kind Bookstore. I'm really excited. It's an independent female black owned bookstore that really focuses on inclusivity and diversity. So I'm just thrilled to meet everybody there. I love supporting independent bookstores. And so to just be there and meet everybody, see the kids, sign the books, I'm thrilled. I'm really thrilled. I love it. So Atlanta, come out. Yes, you'll be able to buy the book, get it signed by you, and get to meet you there. Absolutely. So one-stop shop. Yes. Perfect deal. You are so incredibly interesting. As a person, you really are, and we don't have tons of time to go too deep into it. But in reading about you, you know, the fact that, you know, where you come from, your background, Grand Cayman, so, so cool. Your parents, the fact that your parents were deaf, you grew up speaking to them in sign language. Yeah, so I'm a CODA. I'm a child of deaf adults. If you see the book, you'll see a lot of different physical representations as well, including a child with hearing aids. Again, these inserts are very personal to me. I really want to make sure that we are normalizing our differences versus the other way around, right? We're trying to make ourselves like one another. And so just coming from that understanding background, multicultural background, it was important for me to really include that, especially in these works. Yeah, definitely. All right. So we know you, you know, obviously as an, as an author now, but many of our viewers recognize you from Empire, Harlem, The Blackening, among other projects as well. So share with me, you know, a little bit about, about maybe what's in the works now and how this acting background is, you know, influencing everything that you do now. No, it really is. I have been so fortunate to be able to do drama and comedy. It's been so much fun. I wrapped a project not too long ago called Flash Before the Bang. I do sign in it. And so this one is going to be special when it does come out. I'm also producing, my husband and I are producing films. We just kind of wrapped another film that he wrote and we produced together. Power team. Yeah. So I'm excited. We're submitting to festivals now, so that should be really exciting. That's amazing. And of course, wrapping up the third children's book. So there you go. And I asked her during the break, is there going to be maybe a fourth book coming? I am not going to tell you no, because I didn't think that this one was coming. And so this was thrilling for me. So I'm like, I don't know, maybe this is like a more of a series. We'll see. But so I'll say maybe, maybe we'll take it. Maybe I am wonderfully me. What we're discussing today with author Grace Byers, who's going to be in Decatur this weekend. So Grace, what a pleasure to have you here. Thank you for having me. Yeah, so nice to meet you. You can pick up Grace's new children's book, I Am Wonderfully Me, when it goes on sale October 20th. And you can see her. You can meet her this Saturday when her book tour makes a stop at Brave and Kind Bookshop in Decatur. That's at 3 p.m. on Saturday. Beautiful, well-done book.