Damita Miller-Shanklin

Reading should start early. Growing up my mom read to me every night. She did not like Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss because I would ask her to read it almost every night. This is a fond memory for me. 

This is where Author Aaris Epps enters the story.  Since she was a kid, she has always been a big reader, her mom surrounded her and her siblings with books. She had always wanted to be a children’s author. But nothing inspired her more than her son. She was blessed and fortunate enough to have a baby boy, in 2016. And just living with him, seeing the world through his eyes, “That was the final push that said, quit talking about it, be about it, and get it done.” 

Aaron’s Actions, A Little Book about the Bigness of Kindness is non-faith based.  It’s a book about compassion and kindness, you will follow, a little boy, his mom, and his dad as they do practical things around their community, and what makes a huge difference not only for their community but for the world. Compassion or kindness, they’re not owned or exclusive to one group. They’re a shared value. Epps also pinned Aaron’s Outings, A Little Book about the Bigness of Compassion. parents will find biblical scriptures in the book because sometimes you can share a value with someone but may not share a religion. That’s why she felt it was very important to write a biblically based book and then a non-faith-based book because again, compassion and kindness are shared values.

The books are actually based on her son. the things that they do together for their community. She believes “if you instill kindness and compassion in little children, it won’t be a task. It won’t be a chore, it’ll be natural, innate, and they’ll just do it and they’ll enjoy doing it.”

She is happy that children today have options to have books with characters that look like them. This is unlike our time when all the books we read had white characters and problems we could not relate to but things to dream about. She thanked God that it was a different time when her son was born because she’s such a bookworm, and her husband is as well. She received books at her baby shower as a gift for her baby and that made her happy. Books are universal. For example, compassion and kindness. Those are shared values. But some things are unique to a community or people’s culture. Epps is hoping that these books can be a light in this world.

In finishing well this year Epps says, “I think there will be more books because I have so much good material here. Of course, there will probably be more than likely more children’s books. Epps has many poems on the backlog as she likes to say many manuscripts, but she believes living with her son more books will come, even if she wanted to stop it. She doesn’t think she will be able to.

Because her son is now reading, he realized she wrote two books. They had that moment when he recently opened one of the books to the dedication page. When he read his name he was like, that’s me. They laugh so hard.

Epps is going to finish strong by staying committed to herself. She is drinking her water because nothing else matters if you don’t have your health. She’s finishing strong, not just in mind, not just in spirit, but in the body as well. She will keep ticking off her goals. Epps says “I will continue to strive, even if I fall.”  

Lastly, regarding these books, they were supposed to be children’s books. The books are for children. But they are also a gentle reminder to adults as well.

You can purchase the book on Amazon.com and share the stories with your children. 

Aaron’s Actions: A Little Book About The Bigness of Kindness https://amzn.to/3Vicd3n

Aaron’s Outings: A Little Book About The Bigness of Compassion https://amzn.to/3Hf6A27

This is the corrected version of the story in our November-December issue. We apologize for any inconvenience.