Oceanside High School social worker writes children's books to promote diversity

Roslyne D. Johnson, a social worker at Oceanside High School, is filling in the gaps in diversity in children’s literature, one book at a time. Making the most of her 16 years of experience at the high school, 30 years in the field and a master’s in social work from Adelphi University, Johnson has written 15 children’s books featuring names and styles of Black children, to give readers a representation of their culture.

She began writing in 2017, and her first book, “The Smart Cookie Journal,” was a faith-based journal for teenage girls in which they could express themselves and build their confidence while learning about the Bible. Johnson said that her “goal as a social worker is always to build self-esteem.”

Johnson created the Smart Cookie Academy to accompany the book with conversation. The academy was a focus group of teenage girls that met once a month at Molloy College — now Molloy University —and talk about issues they faced and what upset them at school or at home. “They would bridge that together with the book to connect,” Johnson said, explaining that she used the book as a prompt for discussions. The academy lasted for a year and a half, until the college tightened its policies on allowing minors on campus — and the coronavirus pandemic began.

Still wanting to help people who needed it, Johnson came up with a new idea: to help stressed-out mothers during the early stages of the pandemic. From March to August 2020, on a Facebook page called “Storytime with Mrs. J.,” she read stories to kids online Monday through Friday at 7 p.m.

“It was interesting to get the responses from parents (saying), ‘0h my gosh, thank you so much, this has given me a chance to take a shower,’” Johnson recalled. Some moms thanked her for the simple pleasure of spending a few minutes alone drinking a cup of tea or reading their mail. Her main mission, she said, was “to give moms a break.”

“They know that I’m a clinical social worker, I’m not a whack job, so they felt safe propping the computer or laptop up with a snack,” she said. And since the videos are all still up online, it’s a gift that keeps giving, because they are still being used not only by parents, but also by preschool and kindergarten teachers.

After the pandemic quieted down, Johnson refocused on children’s literature, which she has been passionate about since her three children, now 37, 28 and 24, were kids themselves. A child of the 1970s herself, Johnson said she grew up in a time when “there weren’t a lot of books with kids that looks like me. Fast-forward to my children, I made it a point to go out of my way to find books.”

Although there are more choices now, Johnson says that when she peruses shelves at big-name bookstores, they still lack diversity, so, she decided, “I was going to start writing my own stories, books that feature children of color, and they feature the names that children can identify with, because these are the names that they hear in their communities.”

This summer, she started what she hopes will become a collection of novels loosely based on real-life events, writing a book called “Maya, India and the Magical Mermaid. Maya and India are characters loosely based on Johnson’s two daughters, but, she said, any children can relate to them. The book, an aquatic journey is about kindness and not judging others.

This summer she also wrote “Yes! You Can Be Anything You Want From A to Z,” a book that shows children the variety of career options boys and girls can have. “There is no career specifically for one gender or another,” Johnson said. “You have to be inclusive, so that’s what we have here. If you don’t see people that look like you are doing these things, then you’re really not going to think it’s something you can achieve.”

Besides focusing on inclusivity, the books help children learn better penmanship, follow directions, and identify colors and body parts, among other things. In addition, the stories help young readers build character and self-worth, “helping them on multiple levels,” Johnson. “Reading is what opens your mind, and if you can read, you can do anything,” is what she’d like children to know.

“I feel as though children who don’t see themselves represented in literature in the world, I think it has an impact on their self-esteem,” she said. “If you don’t ever see yourself anywhere, you start to feel invisible, you start to feel like you don’t count, like you don’t matter, like you don’t belong. It needs to be a part of our everyday conversation. They’re showing children what’s possible and making them feel like they count — like they matter.”

Hoping to schedule visits to Oceanside elementary schools to do some read-alouds, Johnson is already sharing the books in the community at local libraries. Next in the series, she is planning to write a Halloween-themed bullying-prevention story.