The Children's Book Podcast · Matthew C. Winner

Strength and History with Stacy Wells

·26 min·2 clips

Stacy Wells reveals how a prison dance and Shonda Rhimes' donation to protect Emmett Till's site give her hope today.

A child is afraid to sleep. Stronger Than follows Dante, a young Black Choctaw boy, as his mother helps him move from recurring nightmares into family stories about survival and love. Matthew starts with what stories can do for children: help them see themselves and notice lives beyond their own. Stacy Wells answers by going back to memory. She remembers a 500-square-foot children’s-focused library in Fort Worth, and the moment of pulling a Nikki Grimes book from the shelf and feeling a spark of connection. The book’s roots keep branching from there. Wells ties that memory to the Bessie Coleman book by Nikki Grimes and E.B. Lewis, and to learning that Bessie Coleman was Black Choctaw. Reading shifted something for her. She talks about returning to classics she had missed and making reading a steady part of her life because she needed it. Then came the call. While walking her dog near a nature center, after nobody in her family wanted to come along, Cynthia Lightick Smith phoned and changed where the story began. The conversation has room to breathe. Stronger Than is not treated like homework. It comes across as a picture book about history, family care, and the stories that help a child feel less alone. Winner listens with a teacher-librarian’s attention to children, while Wells stays close to reading, family, and creative beginnings. Near the end, asked what she would tell a library full of children, Wells says they are enough, whole as they are, and meant to learn, grow, and keep reading.

As heard by us

A warm conversation about a picture book shaped by history, fear, resilience, and enoughness.

Stacey Wells joins The Children's Book Podcast to talk about Stronger Than, the picture book she co-wrote with Nikki Grimes and illustrated by E.B. Lewis.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want a quiet interview that ends with a message kids can carry home.

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