By Erin Wood
Little Rock author and past Little Rock School District Teacher of the Year Tracy Peterson’s second children’s book, Beanies, Ball Caps, and Being Bald: Different Isn’t Bad, Different Is Just Different was released at the end of Alopecia Awareness Month on September 27.
Peterson says, “It has been such a meaningful experience to share my brave former first-grade student Matthew Shelby’s experience of being diagnosed with alopecia and what surrounded it personally and socially. Matthew inspires me with his perseverance. I hope Beanies helps kids be more supportive of each other when classmates and other kids have physical differences.”
Based on Shelby’s real-life story as it unfolded in Peterson’s classroom, Beanies also captures bullying experiences outside the classroom (“Somebody even said to their friend, ‘I dare you to go touch him.’”) While he worries whether everyone will be able to understand, he finds that when he tells his classmates more about alopecia, they ask questions and ultimately agree with him that “different isn’t bad. Different is just different.”
Peterson’s first children’s book, Cartwheels: Finding Your Special Kind of Smart, based on her former first-grade student’s dyslexia journey, focuses on learning differences.
Beanies and Cartwheels are available in hardback and paperback at www.etaliapress.com as well as at local and national retailers.
Hot Springs native, Erin Wood is a writer, editor, and publisher in Little Rock. She owns and runs Et Alia Press (www.etaliapress.com). Wood is author of “Women Make Arkansas: Conversations With 50 Creatives” (April 2019) and editor of and a contributor to “Scars: An Anthology” (2015).
