About The Author

Reda Taleb is a native Detroiter, and the proud daughter of Lebanese Muslim immigrants. She is a strategic, transformative leader, with a demonstrated history of over 15 years of nonprofit experience that spans civic, legal, entrepreneurial, and social justice movements across the United States. Reda is a certified trauma informed healing facilitator, decarceration advocate, spoken word poet, author, and grassroots servant community leader.

All children need books where they can see themselves represented in the characters who share their lived experiences - intersecting identities, dreams, ideas, culture, faith, pain, trauma, challenges, grief, love, hope, family, belonging, and the journeys associated with all of these experiences. Like many others from the MENASA Community (Middle East North Africa South Asia), Reda yearned to see herself and her community's lived experiences authentically and accurately represented in the books/curriculum used throughout her schooling. The erasure of her community, by the federal government and others, sparked her writing career, and passion for reclaiming that narrative through storytelling that is aimed at amplifying her community's voices, while also preserving those stories for generations to come.

Shaping that narrative will require us all to challenge the negative stereotypes and misconceptions we were taught, and to center the most marginalized voices amoungst us - justice impacted and others - as we struggle towards a more just and equitable world. Reda aims to leverage storytelling for cultivating healing, joy, and collective liberation through re-imagining a world with less cages and more community care.