Creating Cultural Connections Through Storytelling Adventures with Author Leah Henderson

Stories spread wings. How do stories serve as windows into diverse cultures and histories while inspiring us to embrace our own identities? Author, educator, and global adventurer Leah Henderson helps us explore the transformative power of rich storytelling. 

This episode is a must-listen for educators, parents, and librarians working to create spaces that celebrate our diversity. Leah also discusses her upcoming conservation trip to South Africa with CBCC and Wild Tomorrow, highlighting the importance of learning, sharing, and finding courage through stories. 

Chapters:

0:03: Exploring Diverse Storytelling: Dive into Leah's journey, exploring how childhood travels shaped her storytelling and ignited her curiosity for uncovering untold stories.

8:10: Cultural Connections: Explore Leah's collaboration on the upcoming I Am the River: Sarah E. Ray and the Bob-Lo Boat, plus how author visits spark possibilities for children.

12:48: Traveling, Learning, and Sharing Stories: Explore the importance of embracing the unknown to gain invaluable lessons. 

19:53: Finding Courage Through Inspiring Stories: Learn about Barbara Hillary's inspiring story of defying odds to reach the poles, and the significance of storytelling in building courage and self-belief.

25:08: Building Hope Through Genuine Connections: How can we nurture every child's voice while fostering understanding and connection?

Links:

• Leah Henderson Website
• Follow Leah on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook
• Preorder  I Am the River: Sarah E. Ray and the Bob-Lo Boat (a collaboration with Patricia Lee Gauch & Kristle Marshall)
• Order: The Courage of the Little Hummingbird; Together We March; Daddy Speaks Love; Your Voice, Your Vote; The Magic In Changing Your Stars; and A Little Bit Super: With Small Powers Come Big Problems. 
• Learn more about CBCC and Wild Tomorrow. Email diane@drdianeadventures.com to receive special videos and content from the South Africa trip.

Transcript

00:02 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So welcome to the Adventures in Learning podcast. I am thrilled to invite a fellow traveler and a prolific picture book and middle grade author to our podcast today. Leah Henderson has traveled the world. She is a kindred spirit in her quest for stories and she has done so many beautiful books that I can't wait to talk to you about today. Leah, welcome to the show and I can't wait to go to South Africa with you later this year. 

00:31 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. 

00:34 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So I want to start by talking a little bit about your adventure in learning, because I know that as a child you traveled all over the place. You had a family, it sounds like, who was really into making sure that you saw a world beyond where you grew up. Can you tell us a little bit about those adventures and how they've shaped you as a writer and as an author? 

00:56 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
Sure, absolutely. I think you know there are certain blessings that you have in your life that you might not appreciate when they're unfolding, and so I'm very glad that my parents are still with me for me to be able to say thank you for this. But what it really is is that when we were young, we lived in communities where a lot of people didn't look like us, and so you're going from the classroom, you're going to the TV set, you're going wherever it is out in the neighborhoods or in the community, and you're getting one story, one narrative of possibly who they think you might be, who you know you are supposed to quote, unquote, be whatever it might be. And so my parents understood very early on that it was important for us to see ourselves out in the world, while it was important to find us in a book somewhere if we possibly could. Honestly, there weren't as many options at the time, but they were like we can get in the car, we can get on a plane, we can get on a boat, we can walk and we can find examples of ourselves out in the world. 

02:03
And so that was kind of my childhood in every way. They brought us to some of the most obscure places, and I'm like this was before internet. How did you even know this place existed? It might be some like tiny little house in the middle of nowhere, but some great thing happened there. And so that's how I started with story. That's how I started with just having an appreciation for the things that are possible and the things that have been done already, and just, you know, looking at yourself and saying there's so much more out there and that also could mean there could be so much more to me. 

02:40 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that and I know that you know when I talk to my college students about the notion of windows and mirrors and sliding glass doors. 

02:49
Thank you, Dr Rudine Sims Bishop, I always try to make sure she gets the credit for that when we talk about it. 

02:53
But there was a graphic that came out a couple of years ago that sort of showed the possibilities that children see and are presented with in picture books and it's a pretty startling statistic because when you look you see the white child at one end of the spectrum who can see himself as president or as an astronaut or as a pirate or you know all of these different things on one end. And then at the far extreme was the indigenous child who had like a shard of a mirror of one story and then everything else sort of fell in between. And for me that's such an alarming vision because we don't want to limit what people can see and it sounds like your parents had a really good. They were locked in early on to showing you other possibilities than just the one that people wanted to typecast you into. How can we go about making sure that more possibilities are available to all children, no matter where they are, whether they've got folks like your parents or like mine, who took us out and made sure we saw a bigger world. 

03:59 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
Right, you know, I think one of the things that we can actively do is support the writers who are telling those stories. Right, whether the students in your class have that makeup or not, it's important to share those stories, because one thing that I learned just growing up after we would come back from these places and then we'd go into class and they'd be talking about a story and we'd be like, but wait a second, we just went to such and such and such and such happened and even the teacher didn't know about it, right. So so just exposure in that way, because then that sparks the curiosity, and for me that's what really did it. My curiosity was sparked to say, well, what else is there then If this is this, if this happened? Well, what else is there then If this is this, if this happened, if this wasn't shown, but it did happen, what else isn't shown? 

04:50
That has happened. And I think, with kids who are naturally curious, when you just start opening up those doors and windows, they themselves climb through, step through right, peek around the corner and they get excited to learn more and they, they move outside of the space that they have been I don't. I don't want to say necessarily born into, but the space that they're in. 

05:11 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Right. 

05:12 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
You can be born into a space and it be flourishing, but there's still something around the corner and it's just that excitement to go, take a look and find out more. So I think the biggest is just to to support the people who are doing the work and also find out ways where you can widen the space and encourage more people to tell those Absolutely. 

05:32 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And whether you're a parent, a grandparent, a teacher or a librarian, you've got the power to be able to hold space for other stories, for other perspectives, for letting kids find those connections Thousand percent and supporting it. I love that. So let's talk a little bit about your books. I mean, I got really excited as I was looking through your catalog because I was thinking about all of the things that a teacher or a librarian could do with them, because you have just done some really amazing stuff in terms of illuminating stories that we don't know. You know whether it's a day for remembering, whether it's Mamie on the mound, your voice, your vote. Together we march. How do you go about deciding what story you want to tell? 

06:20 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
It goes back to that curiosity and just that I have. I'm one of those people that have 50 million things going on in my brain and to figure out which story is the one that I'm going to dedicate that much time to, it just has to keep pushing at me in different ways and in different angles. For me, like, for instance, with Together we March, which is about 25 different protest movements throughout history it came to me because I stepped outside my door in Washington DC and there are tons of protests happening here and I just remember looking at the signs. And it happened to be a student, there were a lot of students out that day and I just remember seeing all the signs and I'm'm like cataloging them in my head and then fast forward a couple months. 

07:09
There was a Google doodle of the silent parade that happened in New York City and I started thinking you know, people kept chiming in saying wait, I didn't know about this, I'd never heard about this, and it made me curious about what other marches, what other moments either have people not heard about or that were so pivotal in other things happening. Right, because that parade, that silent march that happened with 10,000 African-Americans walking down the streets of New York Fifth Avenue. Americans walking down the street in streets of New York Fifth Avenue in complete and utter silence. It was the start of a lot of civil rights marches and protests, and so I so that's kind of where I go I start asking myself questions, and the questions just keep tumbling out of me, for the most part until I settle on okay, this is the story that I'm going to try to figure out how to tell. 

08:10 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
That's exciting, and it sounds like your natural curiosity takes you in a number of different directions. I mean, because you've got. You've got history, certainly, but you've also got folk tales, and it sounds like you're currently tell us a little bit about the book you're currently working on. 

08:23 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
Yeah, so I have a book coming out with Patti Lee Gouch that it's called I Am the River and it is a story about the Boblo Island and the Boblo boats, which is in the Boblo Island is in Canada, but the Boblo boats start out in Detroit and bring travelers to Canada to this amusement park and Patty is from that area. Patty used to be an editor at Philomel, the head editor at Philomel, and she wanted to remember a story about her childhood. But as she was doing research she learned about this woman, sarah Elizabeth Ray, this African-American woman who was taken off the Boblo boats because she was Black, and it was a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court and Thurgood Marshall brought it there and it predated, you know, brown versus Board of Education, it predated Rosa Parks and the bus boycotts, and so it's an important story to learn and, again, it's always for me it's always about discovering things that are little known. 

09:28 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that and it sounds like it's an exciting story and you're working with a mentor to co-write this. Is that right? 

09:35 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
Absolutely she is. I had said to you earlier. She is one of those people on earth where they are so special. You're surprised that they've graced this earth and that you get to be a part of their world in some small way. She's just an amazing, amazing human being, but she's also a wealth of knowledge and to work with her and Arthur Levine it's like a pinch me kind of moment to see how their brains work and and puzzle through things. It's it's been an honor and and the biggest pleasure it's it's been an honor and the biggest pleasure. 

10:07 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And I wish that. If you're not watching this on video, I wish you could see Leah's smile right now, because she is just grinning from ear to ear as she's talking about this. It's contagious. That's super exciting. Now I know that you have a chance to take your books and talk to kids about what you do. What is the most surprising thing about author visits when you go? 

10:30 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
Oh my gosh. There are just so many different things about author visits that always surprise me, but one of the things that helps keep me doing the work there are two things, really. One is that kids think and see so far beyond what we even grasp for them, right? And so some of their questions you might have had some jokey questions about are you famous? Do you make this money? Like what kind of car? 

11:01
All of these, and then a kid will come and ask something that has to change your whole perspective of how you're thinking and you have to pause because you know that this might be the only time they hear that answer and it might be coming from you, right? 

11:18
Or it's the kind of situation where, if you're too flippant with the answer, it might shut them down from ever asking again, right? So those are the moments for me where I'm like you've got to bring your game every single time at every single school, and it is a pleasure and it is an honor. But then the other thing that's just really amazing about it is to see their faces light up when you walk in the room and you know instantly that they're thinking that can happen. I could be that person's doing it right, and I know that from when I was young and we would go to these places and I would see this person walk in the room and I'd be like they did that thing, and you know, and it becomes real then right, and so so much can become real, and so a big word in my family is possibilities, and so it like it blares out when that happens. 

12:12 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that and I love the notion of being able to light possibilities. And you're right, we never know what it is that we say or do, that a kid might be picking up on, or you know what they might be grasping. But we've got the power within us to open doors and to be present and hold space for them, and I think that's probably one of the most important things we can do as educators. And I think that's probably one of the most important things we can do as educators.

12:40 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
 Yes, absolutely. 

12:46 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So we're going to be traveling to South Africa this year as part of a conservation trip with Wild Tomorrow. A lot of your work has been, sort of with a more historical aspect. What drew you to this particular trip? 

12:54 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
Well, the thing is so, I am a big, big traveler and it is in my core, it is like just a part of my DNA. And a fellow author, barb Rosenstock, sent me an email and she's like Leah, I don't know where in the world you are, but you need to put in an application for this, because I think this is right down your alley. And I went over to the site and I looked at it and I was like, oh, yes, please, and so there was a little question. But I think for me, there are so many things that I am passionate about, I am curious about that I am passionate about, I am curious about, I am interested in. 

13:40
But one of the biggest ones is how we care for each other and how we care for our planet. Right, and each other includes the animals, it includes the insects, it includes all the things, and so those are fundamental parts of how I think about any story that I approach. And so a trip like this with fellow um art, like creatives, like-minded creatives are you kidding me? Um, it's, it's so, it's such, it's going to be, so such a joy. Um, and I, you know, you don't know what's going to happen, but I know it's all going to be amazing. 

14:17 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
That's sort of how I'm feeling too. I'm still pinching myself because I keep looking around the room, going how did I wind up in a room with all of these brilliant, amazing creatives? And I'm so excited to be able, as you said, to go and discover and kind of going in with a completely open mind because who knows what the adventures are going to be. 

14:37 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
We have no idea and as someone you know, when you travel a lot, even you know you come back and you tell a story. It could have been a disaster at the time, but that story still holds so much heart to it for that journey right. So, even if things go this way or that way, it's all part of the learning of it, the discovery of it, and I'm here for all of it. I'm here for all of it. 

15:04 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that. And this is not your first trip to South Africa oh it's not, it's not. 

15:09 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
I actually went with my family right at the end of apartheid. It was kind of like my parents called and were like all right, we've changed our plan, this is what we're doing. We're going to spend a month in South Africa and I was like we are. Really we sure about that Because it was so close to when it ended. You don't change mindsets just because you say something is over. 

15:34 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And. 

15:35 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
And so for me as a, as a young black girl, to go to this country, where I was seen a certain way, even more so than you know other places that I've traveled it was. It was a stark reminder of not just the privileges and opportunities that you have, but just the landscape of this world and kind of the conversations that are being had, need to happen, and those kinds of things. They really shaped me. That trip really shaped me. We spent a month and we traveled across, we drove across the country and we stopped and saw friends and did all of these different things and it was just eye-op opening and will never be forgotten. 

16:21 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I was going to say are there things that stand out from that trip, that have sort of stayed with you through the years? 

16:29 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
I mean so many times we might pull up to a gas station and the gas station attendant would kind of stare at us in the car and they would be like why are you here? 

16:42
Like why would you come here, why would you do this to yourself, kind of thing, when you have the opportunity to do so many other things. 

16:51
And my parents would often say because they need to see it, they need to understand it, because you don't, you know people can give lip service, they need to understand it because you don't, you know people can give lip service about what certain things are or what you can do. But until you really are, are in a space, maybe you're not experiencing all the things, but you know there were times where I put a pair of sneakers that I wanted to buy on the counter in the in the store and all of a sudden that counter was closed, right when all of these other people and then as soon as I walked away, it was open again or the people didn't want to clean our room, like you know, like there were all of these different things that were happening and they were honest and they are part of what the landscape of this world is, and so it was. Those are the things that stuck with me, but there are so many other things. The people were amazing Seeing our friends, some of our friends who were exiled and could come back, and all of the parties and celebrations, all of that stuff. 

17:45
So I'm just excited to go back, because I haven't gone back since then. So it should be a good time. 

17:51 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Well, I'm going to be excited to ask you questions and see it through your eyes as well, because I've never been, and I think I was telling you before the conversation the closest connection I had had was I was in college at the time and I don't know to this day how I wound up in a room doing this interview, but it was just before apartheid and it was a group of white Afrikaner businessmen. 

18:15
And it was a group of white Afrikaner businessmen and it was very eye-opening for me because it illuminated for me a lot of the racism but also the sexism that was involved, and it was stuff that you know, as an 18, 19-year-old girl, I had been living in my bubble and I would say that was one of those first things that really pricked that bubble open for me and made me take a more critical look at the world I was living in, and so I'm going to be fascinated to sort of see the world through your eyes for three weeks.

18:47 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
 Yeah, it should be. It should be a blast. 

18:52 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
What we learn in terms of stories with kids as well because that's one of the things I found on my own travels is, you know, not every kid has the opportunity to travel to South Africa or to Antarctica or Australia or the Amalfi coast, and when we can bring back stories, bring back the visuals, be able to share what we learn, we're helping to broaden that world a little bit as well. 

19:17 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
Absolutely, and not just for you know the teachers as well, the parents, the librarians, everyone. There are so many different things that you know as an adult. I'm like I didn't know that, but I learned it in a picture book, so there's just so many wonderful. 

19:35 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
it's like a full circle thing for each of us in different ways, absolutely One of my favorite humans that I didn't know about until I went to Antarctica. And it was because I got curious, because on the wall in the ship there were a bunch of mostly white male explorers that they had listed. There were a couple of women and I had that same question of who else, what else, what am I missing? And so I started going down this rabbit hole that I've been living in for like three years now, because I discovered this woman named Barbara Hillary, and she was the first African-American woman to reach the North and the South poles, and she did it at age 75 and 79. And she was a cancer survivor. She's from Harlem, you know. She never married and she just sort of hit this point after After she survived cancer in her 60s, where she's like I want to travel, I want to see the world and I don't want to hang out with boring married people who are fighting all the time. 

20:34 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
Yeah. 

20:35 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And so she fell in love with the idea of going where other African-American women hadn't been yet, and and it wasn't easy, you know. It wasn't like I can put my credit card out and raise the twenty thousand dollars for this trip. Put my credit card out and raise the $20,000 for this trip. She had to, like, make phone calls and write letters and fundraise, and she was doing it from a position where she didn't have that kind of power. But she managed to make it happen, and I think about her when I travel. Her story has stayed with me and it's one I really want to see. I'm working on it right now, but it's one I want to see make it to the slide today, because it's just a story that people need to know. 

21:15 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
No, absolutely Absolutely. And I and I think on every level one of the things also that I think about a lot, when you do have the opportunity to travel and kind of go outside of your comfort zones, the courage that it takes to do things you don't like you're building courage in a quiet way, almost Like you don't realize it until somebody says you did that and you're like, yeah, why not? And you're like, wait a second. And it does. It takes courage and it takes kind of some self-awareness and I think when you place those people who are doing those things and stories for kids, they're like wait a second, I could do that. That's building courage in different ways and I think it's so important to do, to find courage in the different pockets of our life. 

22:10 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And we need those stories, and we need those supports, especially in a world that would like us to stay small. 

22:16 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
Exactly, exactly A thousand. That's like my little hummingbird. Exactly, that's a thousand percent. 

22:23 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Tell us about the little hummingbird. Yeah, share some about that story. 

22:27 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
So the little hummingbird is the story of my heart. 

22:31
I think you know, people write stories for all kinds of different reasons, and the Hummingbird was a story that I wrote for myself because I needed to hear it. 

22:47
I needed to hear what it was saying and what it was reminding me of. And so I was going, like in the professional space sometimes you get you should do this, or you should be this, or this should happen or this. And I and I felt like I was getting that over and over and over and over and over and it was kind of like am I not enough? As I am, I'm willing to do the work to continue to better myself, but is what I'm saying not enough? And I remembered this fable that I had heard a long time ago and I was on a plane coming back from Luxembourg or some random place, and I had been with friends who were super excited about the work that I had out in the world, but I was feeling less than when I was sitting on the plane because of all of these other voices, because, as we know, those are so much louder than the people cheering and supporting you and I have an amazing support system. 

23:43
And so I was on that plane and some reason, that fable came back into my head and I took out a napkin and just started writing, and it literally is about the smallest of us trying to do something that seems insurmountable, especially when voices of those who are larger than us tell us we can't. But the only thing that we can do is keep trying, and so that for me was like Leah, flap your wings, girl, and just try, like just keep trying. And so that one that is a story that every part of it I wrote for myself, because I needed to hear it, I needed to be reminded, and I also wanted to write a story that featured animals from all over the world. That was really big for me and that got a little pushback from my publishers on it at first, but it was something that was important to me. 

24:38 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that and that I'm going to encourage everybody to grab that book and I'll drop a link to it in the show notes as well because it is such a beautiful story and it's one we all need to hear right now, because I think it can be really hard sometimes to feel that you're enough and you're right. We can hear 1000 voices telling us we're doing well and that one voice derails us. 

25:07 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
It's, and it's true, and I think, especially with with kids, like you know, you go into schools and sometimes it's the kid that's the jokester, the silly kid or the one that's always in trouble, but they do have a question and they're, and you already see, the teacher is kind of batting them down, the class is kind of like and it's like, but what? But their voice is still important, like they might be the jokester, they might be the clown, but to to to kind of discount that they have something to say is heartbreaking to me all the time when it happens. And so I always try to be like what you got for me, beautiful, what are you? What are you about to tell me, what are you about to ask me? And then you're in your heart and your head saying oh, please, please, please, don't be something silly. But but at the same time you want to, you want to acknowledge that they're here, you want to see their space in the room. 

25:54 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So and I think that's the joy of going in as an author or as the informal educator the way I do it is we get a chance to see kids outside of the blinders that I think often accompany them day to day, because, you're right, we tend to categorize kids as one thing or, you know, 180 days into the school year, you've heard this every morning for 180 days and it sometimes takes somebody from the outside to remind you that this child is special and this child has something to say, and you just have to go beyond the and I mean it's also a reminder for me as well right To not discount Right. 

26:37 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
I think it works. I think it works both ways, because when you are in the trenches with these kids, you have to set some boundaries. But it's also for me to say, okay, how can you step into this space and make it so that you're not pushing against but you're also opening up, right and so? It's something to be mindful of, because we don't always get it right either, not at all, it's definitely something that helps me continue to be aware and be aware of the space that we take up in these rooms. 

27:11 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And it's space that we take up in all of our lives. I mean it applies to our adult lives outside of a classroom as well. 

27:17
But you know there are times where we don't realize that we have put people into categories, or that we've sort of done our own portioning out, or that we come in and we're like I'm going to take over this space now and it's a good reminder just about how you live and how you breathe with other people. Thousand percent, a thousand percent. So last question for today Okay, what brings you hope? 

27:43 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
Oh, my goodness, so many things bring me hope. I think for me, the biggest thing that brings me hope, um, it's, it's gonna, I'm gonna since we've been talking about travel and stuff um, when you go away and you sit down on a train or you're on a bus or you're on a boat or you're on a camel or wherever, and there is someone from a totally different world space than you and you can just sit in community and have a good time, and, whether you are in agreement or not, there is a bonding that's forming and that gives me hope that, even with all of this that's going on, all of the pounding and disagreements and all of the trying to do better than or this, that and the other thing, my hope is that, at our core, when we kind of can sit around in those spaces, when we're traveling like that especially, and let down those walls and have just these genuine conversations, that brings me hope. That brings me hope for more right, so that when we step off of those spaces, we go do more with what we learned. 

28:53 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that and I cannot wait to step into those spaces with you. Leah, thank you for joining us on the podcast today. 

29:00 - Leah Henderson (Guest)
Thank, you again for having me. It's been so wonderful to spend some time with you before our big trip. 

29:06 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I know.