Strength and History with Stacy Wells

Stacy Wells, co-author of Stronger Than (Heartdrum), co-authored by Nikki Grimes and illustrated by E.B. Lewis, joins Matthew to talk about never giving up because those that came before us never gave up.

Listen along:

About the book: Stronger Than by Nikki Grimes and Stacey Wells; Illustrated by E.B. Lewis. Published by Heartdrum.

Renowned author Nikki Grimes and debut picture book writer Stacy Wells (Choctaw) lend their resonant voices to award-winning artist E. B. Lewis’s (Lenni Lenape) rich watercolors in this story of a Black Choctaw boy who finds strength in the example and history of his ancestors.

When Dante struggles with nightmares, his mother believes learning his family’s history will help him cope. The roots on both sides of his family tree run deep, with stories of survival through events Dante’s mother calls “daymares.”

Taking discovering his heritage into his own hands, Dante finds out hard truths—but also a love that shines through generations and, finally, a strength to sleep through the night.

Features author and illustrator notes, historical references, a glossary, and a note from Heartdrum author-curator Cynthia Leitich Smith.

More:

Visit Stacy Wells online at stacywellswrites.com 

Learn more about the Highlights Foundation and their upcoming programs by visiting www.highlightsfoundation.org 

Transcript:

NOTE: Transcript created by Descript. I've attempted to clean up any typos, grammatical errors, and formatting errors where possible.

Matthew: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Children’s Book Podcast, where we celebrate the power of storytelling to reflect our world, expand our perspectives, and foster connections between readers of all ages. Brought to you in partnership with the Highlights Foundation, positively impacting kids by amplifying the voices of storytellers who inform, educate, and inspire children to become their best selves.

I’m your host, Matthew Winner—teacher, librarian, writer, and a fan of kids.

Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can hear The Children’s Book Podcast early and ad-free by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. Click the banner on your podcast app at any time.

Today, I’m honored to be joined by Stacy Wells, a Choctaw author and co-author of the powerful picture book Stronger Than (Heartdrum), written alongside the incomparable Nikki Grimes and illustrated by award-winning artist E. B. Lewis.

Stronger Than tells the story of Dante, a young Black Choctaw boy who struggles with recurring nightmares. When sleep becomes difficult, Dante’s mother gently guides him toward the history of his family—stories of survival, resilience, and love that stretch across generations. These are stories of hardship and endurance, what Dante’s mother calls “daymares,” but also stories that reveal the deep strength carried by his ancestors and alive within him.

As Dante learns more about who his people are and what they’ve overcome, he discovers that he is not alone—not in his fear, not in his dreams, and not in the world. With lyrical text and luminous watercolor illustrations, Stronger Than offers young readers a moving meditation on heritage, identity, and the healing power of knowing where you come from.

In this conversation, I talk with Stacy about bringing her Choctaw voice to the page, collaborating with Nikki Grimes and E. B. Lewis, and what it means to tell stories that honor both pain and perseverance—especially for Native and Black children who deserve to see their histories reflected with care and truth.

Stacy is a public librarian and we can’t help but talk libraries throughout. That leads us into conversations around service, history, and collaboration. And all with a sense of possibility for what future stories like these and conversations like these can help bring about. 

Please welcome Stacy Wells to the podcast.

Stacey: Hello, my name is Stacy Wells and I'm an author and a librarian. [00:03:00] And I'm a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, and I am the author of Stronger. Van co-written with Nikki Grimes and illustrated by E.B. Lewis. 

Matthew: E.B. Lewis. Come on. I know we're just starting Stacey, but E.B. Lewis. Wow, 

Stacey: that's awesome.

It is pretty amazing. And I love, he did Bessy Coleman, the book with Nikki years ago, about 20 years ago, and then he did to Walk the Sky, Patricia Morris Buckley's book. It's a nonfiction, and there it is, just breathtaking. His art. 

Matthew: He does spectacular work, truly. And you're a librarian. The kids know him

from his work.

He has a distinct but before we get into talking about your books, I'd love to just help plant our feet in the present. So Stacey, tell me what's giving you hope today? Today as we're meeting, what's giving you hope? 

Stacey: I thought you would ask this question, and I actually took screenshots because I want [00:04:00] people give me hope and I have to see the humanness and the kindness of people every day in this world.

Matthew: I love that. 

Stacey: Yes. And it really does bring me hope when I see people go out of their way to help others. So one of the things that I came across recently. Is there was a dance held at the Angolia prison for inmates who haven't seen their daughters in years, and I thought that was a beautiful expression of humanity and like rehabilitation and just that piece of them being human.

Like I said it is just a beautiful act. And then let's see, all I've enjoyed all of the Brendan Kennedy, I think he goes by Wewa Weiwei. He was, I guess the director for the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. And it was so full of life and love and I appreciated the way he responded to everything. I love that they had those powwow dancers at the parade.

I [00:05:00] just love all that and I think that gives me lots of hope. And I think there was one more thing. Yeah. That was, oh, and Shonda Rhimes just recently invested one and a half million dollars to protect the sacred ground of where Emmett Till was tortured and murdered. And I just thought, that's a beautiful gift that she's giving to everyone in the United States, to the world.

And so that story is not forgotten, and that gives me hope because there are people out there doing good things, and that gives me hope. 

Matthew: Stacey, I love that you're taking these screenshots or saving tabs of them because I think the beautiful thing about hope is that it's always there, but it beckons us to notice.

And so you're showing me an act of noticing and then sharing with all of us. I appreciate that. I would love to hear. From you, a brief book talk of Stronger than this picture book you have. I told [00:06:00] you I timing just happened to work out that I interviewed Nikki Grimes yesterday and that doesn't happen to me, that things line up that way.

So I am going to really enjoy the knowledge that I'm bringing into this conversation, but also getting to hear the way you. The way this story moved you and is coming through you. So tell us what stronger than is. 

Stacey: Stronger than is about a black Choctaw boy who finds strength through his ancestors, who survived the Trail of Tears and the Tulsa race massacre.

He has nightmares and that is the one of, that is the way he processes and finds strength through those ancestors and elders. To me, the story is resonant and it's engaging the way it works with the art, the way EB did the art and the Sia tones versus the brighter you did blues and [00:07:00] colors.

Matthew: I think that the way EB Lewis's work moves between I think often that I know his work to be.

Holding a space in a location. He seems to know his locations very well. When he illustrates it brings me there, it makes me feel like there's a known place that, that's rooting the story. In stronger then to be moving between dream and this location and through history and through the library.

There's a lot of I think strong work that's being done by all three of you. Because I guess I bring up Jacqueline Woodson too, because I think about how this is really a long form. Picture book. We have a lot of picture books that are becoming very terse in language, which is not a problem at all.

But there are some too that beck and for readers to sit with [00:08:00] and to hear this story. And this is one of those. And it's beautiful and it works very well. And E.B. Lewis has given us a lot to take in those illustrations as we encounter this story. 

Stacey: He absolutely does. And I appreciate you saying that it is a long form picture book and I.

There's always distance when we worked on the project and then we waited for years for EB to be ready to illustrate and then, it's been a while since I have read the story and I recently went back and I read the story and just my heart stopped. I was like, this is a beautiful story. I knew that because I was there as we were, like Nikki was writing it and we were collaborating on that story piece.

And then as I was writing the back matter, but time and distance.

Matthew: Yeah. 

Stacey: And it, that ending is just so poetically beautiful.[00:09:00] 

Matthew: How cool that you were able to get distance enough from it that you were able to experience it. As a reader, not as, of course, as the writer, but not so directly as the writer. 

Stacey: Absolutely. That's coolly that's a gift. Yeah. That was a gift and I needed that gift, so yeah. 

Matthew: That's cool. Tell me about how you got involved [00:10:00] with Nikki.

Nikki shared about the story being one. She started years and years ago that just wasn't working. It had an element about dream catchers and a child having nightmares, but it just didn't work and that she felt like it wasn't her story to tell, but that come recently in the past couple years, she was revisiting the works that she had filed away, archived away.

And felt like maybe this is the right time for this. So tell me how you got involved, all the different ways that you got involved. 

Stacey: I like to think back way, way back in the back when I was a baby librarian at Job. I was working, I swear it was a 500 square feet library, in a very specific environment in Fort Worth.

And I remember just walking the shelves and they left me in [00:11:00] charge. And I don't know why because I didn't. But I remember walking the shelves one day. 'cause mostly we focused on children's materials. We did, we had very little for adults. And because of our size. I remember pulling out a Nikki Grime's book and I just sat there looking at it and I felt like that was the Our connection moment.

Matthew: Oh, 

Stacey: I, and I feel like maybe that's when she had finished the Bessie Coleman story, because that came out, I wanna say in 2002, Bessie Coleman, the book she did with eb, that where she learned that Bessie Coleman was a black Choctaw. And I like to think that's when the seed was planted is when I looked at that and like our paths were on there because as soon as that happened I was also beginning up my reading again.

I was very adamant like I have to go back and read all these classics that I have never read before. 'cause I ignored them in high school and then I just kept that pattern of reading 'cause I needed [00:12:00] that and that's how, like how I like to say it began, but that is my version. But I think the real version began.

I was walking in my dog, we have a nature center just down the street from my house. And I walked my dog and nobody in my family wanted to go on a walk with me. And it was very sad. And so I was walking, had my phone, and Cynthia Lick Smith called me 

Matthew: and she called you called 

Stacey: me. And it's not like we hadn't talked on the phone before, but we weren't like phone friends then, right?

And I'm like, why is Cynthia calling me? So at first I answered and I'm like, hello? And one thing leads to another and she goes, do you know Nikki Grimes? And I'm like, yeah, I'm a librarian. I know Nikki Grimes. She goes, what do you think about working with her on a project? And I'm like. Yeah, of course. The whole time I'm like, how am I gonna work with Nikki Grimes?

How am I gonna do this? Am I ready? But I had to pretend none of that was happening inside my head. At the same time, I was talking to [00:13:00] Cynthia and then I'm like now I gotta meet Nikki Grimes. I 

Matthew: love that 

Stacey: well get to meet Nikki Grimes. Should I say, I was, who am I? I was like, baby had an agent selling yet.

We were still working on stuff, so 

Matthew: that's cool. That's cool that all of those seeds planted, ended up connecting in that way. I know that Nikki and Cynthia have known each other for a long time. I have met. Cynthia Light Smith one time I believe in person and otherwise have just known her work at large and respected her work at large for a long, long while.

And knowing that Stronger then was published through Har Drum. As soon as I was talking to Nikki and that name came up, I thought, oh, this is cool. I didn't realize this is where you were leading me. So she reached out to you or you both got in contact with each other? You were, [00:14:00] originally I think pulled in to help with how do we make sure that we honor the Choctaw representation through this story.

But it became that original book changed your influence. Is there? 

Stacey: Yeah, it is. I know Nikki had a conversation with Cynthia before me, and I was the one Cynthia called and. I'm such a collaborator. I don't know if I, it's because I grew up in centers my whole life and then the library I work in, but like collaboration is probably one of my strongest things.

I love to work with other people on projects. I love that. Yes. And of course I was scared when I said yes. Of course. I was nervous when I met Nikki for the first time via Zoom. Because how do you work with a legend when you're this new girl on the scene? A 

Matthew: children's literature legacy award winner.

Yeah. Yep, 

Stacey: sure. And we found our rhythm and we were beautiful. We found our rhythm. 

Matthew: [00:15:00] I would imagine you both had a lot to learn in that space and coming at it, approaching it through a a willing heart and through a collaborative lens. Would allow you both to grow. I can't imagine learning, learning, writing from Nikki.

That's incredible, but also to affirm I'm one affirming you that there was great value that you brought to this story and it wouldn't be what it is without your voice on it. 

Stacey: Thank you. I appreciate that. 

Matthew: So in this story, I wanna speak specifically about plot because we have Dante your main character awoken by this dream.

Early on in this story. This is connection that remains throughout this book. But as a librarian, and I'm speaking to a fellow librarian, I can't help but think about what moments like that in books or the books that I have read growing up and to my students have invoked in those readers that ideas.

[00:16:00] The idea that we all come from somewhere and that if we can know where we came from the past that has led to this moment there's strength there. It can be comforting can help us to know ourselves more. I'd love to ask you more specifically about. That process of inviting young people to explore history and that connection with the here and now, because that, that to me is at the heart of this story.

Stacey: Oh, absolutely. I think for so long, native history and black native history has been suppressed, erased. We don't talk about it. I, the intersectionalities. People are sta native, people are stereotyped to look one way and to present a certain way that we all live in reservations. And I think the story is a beautiful blend of fighting all of those different stereotypes and perceptions people [00:17:00] have, and then the way we look and then the way we act the things we eat, just the everyday nuances of life.

Matthew: Yeah. Dr. Debbie Reese once reminded me. A decade or so ago Matthew, remember that native people are not people of color. They're people from a place. They're people from a people. And that those roots, that ancestry travels across many different ethnic groups, and that then begets the fact that.

There are still so many stories and so many kids that need to be represented that haven't had that opportunity yet. So how beautiful and stronger than that, you're able to reflect and represent one story of one Afro indigenous kid, 

Stacey: right? 

Matthew: It's beautiful. 

Stacey: And I think pulling in the trail of tears in the [00:18:00] Tulsa race massacre, bring those to the forefront, and we're not 

Matthew: absolutely 

Stacey: worried.

For so long nobody knew about the Tulsa Race massacre. 

Matthew: Plenty of people knew. Nobody talked about it. 

Stacey: Talked about I know what 

Matthew: you mean. Yeah. 

Stacey: I didn't know, my education didn't have that in it. I, 

Matthew: no, I didn't know about it either. 

Stacey: I do remember in school talking about the Trail of Tears. Did I even know what it really meant?

No, but I do remember, I grew up outside of Oklahoma and I don't even, your Texas education. And what they decide to choose to teach, is reflective of what I know. 

So I think that was important to bring that to the light, but it's, but while it's devastating situations, we can also come and be stronger than those situations.

And that's the biggest takeaway. 

Matthew: Absolutely. We come from. And if we don't know about then how will we make sure that we don't repeat. We have to know about these things and know about them with the weight [00:19:00] and the implication of their existence. That, that we erased black wealth in Tulsa and we erased land and ancestry in order to claim.

Provinces, locations, ownership over stuff. No. It's bad. It's terrible. And if we don't talk about it, then it doesn't bear weight. 

Stacey: Right. 

Matthew: And kids are ready to be weight bearers. Absolutely. You know this, you work with children, so do I. They care tremendously about things that matter and all things matter.

All the kids want to do. Is care about things and care about other people that they might not understand where someone is coming from, but goodness do they wanna do, they wanna care. So again, I would say thank you for that invitation [00:20:00] for more and more children to engage in history and perhaps hear about something or engage in a topic that they might not have realized.

Happened or affected people the way that it did. Yeah. 

Stacey: And I'm just gonna add one more thing that I think as a native person, it really shows to me like our survival from the Trail of Tears and government enforcements and treaties being broken, but treaties forced by the power of our Native Nations and their sovereign.

And I think that's, one of the biggest things that is in the book, but maybe it is not visible, is the Choctaw Nation is what it is today because they never gave up despite all of these things. And I would, it's the same for all of the other Native Nations. They're still here. There's like 574.

Federally recognized tribal nations in the United States and 62, 63, [00:21:00] 64 state recognized tribes. We're still here and we're all over the place, and we have, we deserve to have our stories for our children to see. 

Matthew: Agreed. Absolutely. I

yeah, I think about, it makes me think about my students. Of course it does. But it makes me think about the burden. That we may put on people or that we've put on native people to have to continue to fight for existence and recognition in a contemporary sense. Not a people of then, but a people of now.

Yeah. But we do it one story at a time. You writing us, reading us sharing, don't we? Absolutely. Before we go I noticed. I noticed that you have a series with Capstone 10 of Cooks. Can you tell me about this? 

Stacey: Oh, it is a sweet little series. There's gonna be eight books total. I think two more comes in January.

Crazy. Eight books. [00:22:00] Let's go. I almost don't remember writing them, but they were fun to write. Great. They're like 

Matthew: beginning chapter books. 

Stacey: Early chapter books. It's about terrific. Tana, her name is Tana. It's a long story of why it says Tana. But her name is Tana in my mind, and it means Weaver in Choctaw.

And I wanted her to be like the weaver in this story of her friends and family. So it's about Tana, who's in second grade, who has adventures with her friends and family. But really learns about her heritage and her people in the kitchen with her dad and her family as they cook meals, as they cook desserts, as they cook for the community.

And that's where the heart of the story is like in the kitchen. And I think that a lot of the times in our homes, that's the heart of the house. 

Matthew: My goodness. I cannot wait to read those. Oh, we have such terrific. Chapter book series that students find love. I think about the Meet Yasmine [00:23:00] series by Sadia Faruki.

And a couple others that, as I'm thinking about it, I think are also by Capstone, which is great. I'm so glad that you were able to contribute stories and representation into that space. I can't truly can't wait to read to, to not just read them, but to order 'em for our library. Our time has slipped through my fingers.

It happens, but it has. And so as I think about when next you and I will meet, I wanna bring you into my library, Stacy, to ask you this question that I will see a library full of children tomorrow morning. Is there a message that I can bring to them from you? 

Stacey: I would like to tell them that they are enough.

They are whole as they are right now. And their only job is to learn and to grow and to keep reading and know that they're enough.[00:24:00]