Tucson author's 'What Color is Your Hand?' began with an honest question from 3-year-old grandson

A conversation with her grandson led Roni Capin Rivera-Ashford to write her latest children’s book.

"What Color is Your Hand?" talks about the similarities and differences between people, starting with the colors of our skin.

Rivera-Ashford is a retired educator and bilingual author who lives in Tucson. She joined The Show to talk about the inspiration for this book — which came out of kind of an offhanded comment that her then-young grandson made.

Full conversation

Roni Capin Rivera-Ashford

RONI CAPIN RIVERA-ASHFORD: Yes, at that time he was 3 years old, and I was holding him so that he wouldn't fall off of a stool, and he had his hands on my hands, you know, very intently, because he didn't want to fall either, and he noticed a stark difference in the color of our hands at that time, and he seemed quite disturbed about it.

And he's like, oh, Noni, your hand is not the color of my hand and my hand is not the color of your hand, and it seemed to really bother him. And I was, oh, just wanting to soothe him and help him feel comfortable in his own skin and with my own skin.

And so that's when I made up this, not made up, I mean it came to me, this little story that I said, you know, your, your hand is like chocolate and mine is vanilla, and your mom's is like coffee and your dad's is like cream. So your color is like coffee and cream. And he was very happy after that.

MARK BRODIE: What initially went through your mind when he first said that to you?

RIVERA-ASHFORD: It hurt my heart that it felt like his heart was hurting from noticing this difference and I wanted him to feel comfortable with who he is and comfortable with who I am, and he knows that there's a lot of love in that connection, and that, you know, it's, it's really wonderful to have those differences.

So it's wonderful and delicious, and that's what makes our world so spectacular is all the differences, and that's when I, you know, once I got back home and, that's, I would say that's how I deal with life, whether it be the joys or the sorrows, the grief or the love, is by writing and analogies and stories.

And I did that when my brother was dying of cancer, you know, as a poem called “Hold My Hand Hermanito” and it, it came to me and it was very soothing for me to deal with my grief at that time, and it was very soothing for my brother when I read it to him. So the same with my grandson, and after I, I got home and I just started journaling and thinking about it, it just came to me to write this story.

BRODIE: It's interesting because I would imagine in that moment, you realized, OK, I have a couple of ways I can handle this. I can do what you did, which is to sort of make an analogy and really try to comfort your grandson that this is OK, yes, you know, your hand is different than my hand, but that's OK.

There's also the option of just trying to sort of change the subject. There's also the option of like going through sort of a very scientific kind of biological explanation, age-appropriate, of course, but still a more like scientific pragmatic kind of explanation. I'm curious what led you to go the direction that you did?

RIVERA-ASHFORD: I think that I take that direction often because of the complexities of life that I faced as a child. And it took, I feel now that I look back that it took away my childhood, the innocence, the joy, the beauty of childhood. I feel like when we're that young, we don't, we don't really need to be confronted with heavy problems or problem solving. We can learn that as we go a little later on.

So I think innately, that's what's built within me, and that's where all of my stories come from. Like my first book that I wrote when I was teaching my students to read in their home language, be it Spanish or English.

And “My Nana's Remedies,” which came first to me as “Lo Remedios de Mi Nana” because I grew up speaking both Spanish and English at the same time, so, it sort of goes back and forth very easily and, and that's what came to me was that story so that I could teach my students how to read in their home language, and it's a story that is very culturally relevant to them.

And we need that relevancy and those connections, so that then we can connect letters to words to sentiments, and we learn how to read, right? So, I think innately that's how dealing with life situations come to me is, is through stories that bring joy and connection.

BRODIE: That connection aspect is interesting because you reference how you're really trying to make your grandson feel better in the moment and as you just said, it sounds like you're in a sense like almost trying to protect him and protect his childhood from, you know, some of the challenges and difficulties that I'm assuming you realized at that time he will inevitably, as we all do, encounter later in life.

RIVERA-ASHFORD: Absolutely, yeah. If we start off with a foundation of love and positivity and connection, it creates a more stable foundation. So then we can go out and deal with what it is we have to confront when there are conflicts and, you know, all of those issues that, that we come to learn about as we're growing up.

BRODIE: Looking at this now, obviously you didn't just write this book for your grandson, so I'm curious now that it is in the world, what do you hope it achieves? Like, what do you hope the reader takes away from it?

RIVERA-ASHFORD: Oh, exactly what it's gifting them, which is the gift of seeing that the differences that we all have just create the beauty in our relationships and who we are in our world, whether they are birds, butterflies, flowers in the garden, the fish in the sea, and each other.

As human beings, we all have a lot more in common, we, we are much more the same than we are different.