I’ve had the idea for A Is for Ancestor: My Black College ABCs for over 10 years. My oldest daughter and I talked a lot about each letter and what kind of image might be best to portray each letter.

When I first met Cami, we talked about HBCUs and some of the experiences that make them unique. We talked about the importance of the illustrations having a variety of skin tones and hair textures because I knew that I wanted African-American children to see themselves in the pages of the book.

Cami took my ideas and drew thumbnail sketches for each picture. Then I would pick the thumbnail that I liked best and she would spend more time adding details to make sure the images matched my vision. Since I’m not an artist, it was exciting to see my ideas created on the page.

There was a nice collaboration that we created. There were times when I asked for things and Cami would say she could do it, but that it wouldn’t look right on the page. There were other times when I would keep asking her for tweaks to the images to get everything right. I think we succeeded!