We love reading to our kids.
We’ve also found that some children’s books don’t reflect the present we live in or the future we envision.
While reading to our kids, we found ourselves changing the language (pronouns, adjectives, even personality traits) to better reflect our world and the future we want.
These little tweaks didn’t change plots, they just stepped in when a book defaulted to a stereotype or dominant culture.
Changing on the fly was a start, but a temporary fix, and one that hid a problem instead of acknowledging it.
We talked to friends, and found out they were doing the same thing.
So, we invented StickHERS.
Lizz & Isaac
When we had our son in 2015, we were surprised and disappointed by how many children’s books defaulted to primarily male characters. The more we read, the more inequities we found in children’s books: some explicit, some by exclusion.
We then had a deeply loved and healthy baby girl, who died of SIDS. And in 2020, we had our second daughter. As we pulled out the books we’d pulled out two times before, we were reminded of those same inequities. Emerging from grief, and as (again) new parents, we wanted to try to make the world better for all kids.
Drawing on our experiences in fashion, art, design, and sustainability, and as parents, we started StickHERS to help families model their values, at story time and beyond.
There’s a need for StickHERS because of a lack of perspective. As we can’t speak to every family or child experience, we work with an extended group of diverse families to get their perspective and real-life user feedback.
