Big Head Books Takes Off In Pittsfield
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — These days it's difficult to get a 10-year-old to even pick up a book, much less read one.
More and more, kids are favoring electronics over literature, not necessarily because gadgets are more interesting, but because book characters are lacking. It was this perceived disconnect between characters and kids that prompted Tyrone Allan Jackson and his sister Nicole Davies to create their own publishing company.
Big Head Books, which is only a few months old, has a big mission. According to Jackson, the goal is to bring interesting characters to equally interesting readers.
"We want to be bring unique, diverse characters and contemporary story lines to kids who are reading," he said in a phone interview. "I've found very little representation of black and Hispanic and multicultural characters depicted in a contemporary setting. My kids brought home a book order from school and out the 150 titles, there was only one book with a person of color and it was a young boy in the 1960s dealing with segregation. It seems that the only way that other cultures are represented in literature is in stories from 40 or 50 years ago. Kids are not going to want to read that."
 'Danny Dollar' is the first title to be published under the Big Head Books banner. |
Enter "Danny Dollar," Jackson's brainchild and the company's first publication. The book chronicles the adventures of Danny Dollar, a 10-year-old who is grappling with issues such as money, lemonade and, of course, the neighborhood bully. While Danny's story is simple it is most importantly, according to Jackson, accessible to all readers young and old.
"I've gotten really great feedback from people of all ethnic backgrounds," said Jackson, who is running the company out of his home for now. "The story line is universal. It's about discovering your dream and going after it. We really are hoping to expand the literary palette with these kinds of books."
In the way of "Danny Dollar," Jackson and the crew behind Big Head Books are each rallying behind their skills and their life experiences in a multiracial world, to inform future decisions about upcoming books and signing tours. In fact, Jackson recently left his full-time job as a corporate sales representative to become a full-time author and publisher.
In addition to having several orders for "Danny Dollar" from schoolteachers and youth leaders from Manhattan to Virginia, Jackson is stepping out of the Berkshires this weekend to do some marketing and a book signing at the Hue-Man Bookstore in Harlem, N.Y. Journeys like these, said Davies, who is Big Head's creative director, are exactly what the company needs to move forward and beyond.
"It's difficult to be in the writing world today," she said. "My brother's a writer and I'm a writer and we have all of this technology at our fingertips, why not do it ourselves? 'Danny Dollar' is our jumping-off point. We've discovered our niche and it needs to be filled. There is a cornucopia of colors out there. The face of America is changing. The faces of its children are changing, too. And not just here. We just shipped 100 books to the Dominican Republic; we're going international."
Big Head Books plans to have at least three more titles, including a picture book, under its belt by June and will participate in the "Lift Ev'ry Voice" festival, a countywide, monthlong celebration of local African-American heritage. Davies said many area cultural and nonprofit organizations including the Women of Color Giving Circle, The Women's Times and the city itself have been "big supporters" of Big Head's mission to inject diversity into children's literature.
"We think we're going have a major launching of the company at 'Lift Ev'ry Voice.' We want to make people comfortable with what we're doing and to be able to relate with what's in the pages," Davies said.
With two interactive websites, a slew of orders (Barnes & Noble just recently picked up "Danny Dollar") it seems that Big Head Books is well on its way to becoming a major player in contemporary literature. However, the most important goal, said Jackson, is to encourage kids of all ages and backgrounds to pick up a book and start reading.
"It is surreal the number of schools and community centers that have taken our book on," he said. "It makes me realize how needed these characters are. We just had this idea three years ago and things are really starting to happen. Our motto is 'Get Bookin'' and that's exactly what we're doing."
