PORTSMOUTH — When Stephanie Morales speaks to young students, she has them guess what she really likes to do, and what used to be written on her report card.
She loves to solve problems, she tells them. As for her report card? Teachers always noted she was talkative.
When Morales was a student at Highland-Biltmore Elementary, she didn’t connect to a profession when adults came to speak at career day. But her mom had the idea to take her to the Portsmouth courthouse to observe.
Morales found herself drawn in by the hive of activity. Inside the courtroom, lawyers talked and solved problems, just like she enjoyed doing.
Now, Morales has turned her story into a children’s book — “The Day I Became a Lawyer!” — aimed at fostering early childhood literacy and encouraging kids to think about what they want to become.
Morales said she wants to embolden young people to think about their interests and how they can build upon them, finding careers that allow them to help the community and also feel fulfilled.
“I want to create those moments as much as possible,” she said.
Morales’ husband, Luis, has watched her share her story with young students and encouraged her to create the book, which became a family project. Luis helped write and format. Their sons copy edited and their daughters read and provided early feedback.
To find an illustrator, Luis Morales reached out to Tidewater Community College and eventually teamed up with Norfolk-based artist Yvonne Frederick.
Stephanie Morales loved Frederick’s bright watercolor and gouache paintings and fantasy illustrations, a genre she likes.
Frederick looked at old photographs Morales shared with her to design the characters. She made small thumbnail sketches of the pages, then rough drafts, then the finished paintings.
“It really spoke to me, the story she was trying to tell,” Frederick said.
The project, now available on Amazon, is Frederick’s first published children’s book.
Frederick and Morales said representation in children’s literature is important. Frederick said she makes a point to paint brown characters and incorporate a variety of demographics into her work: “We’re not just a one-color world.”
Morales, who is Black, said she was fortunate as a child: She saw people who looked like her, and those who didn’t, in her community, her school and in the courthouse she visited that day with her mom.
She couldn’t fully understand it then, but having that experience allowed her to see herself doing the work of an attorney, she said.
Morales said there was a clear lack of representation in books and TV shows, but her parents sought out children’s books that showed a diversity of characters, so she could see herself reflected.
She hopes her book, and her story, will help kids see that opportunities abound.
“Your imagination as a young person is limitless, but sometimes we can only imagine what we’ve seen,” Morales said. “We have to make sure that representation is there … and that young people recognize their own abilities.”
Margaret Matray, 757-222-5216, margaret.matray@pilotonline.com