Something magical can happen when you read a book. You are transported to another place beyond your current world and can start to imagine new things for yourself that weren’t possible before. Just ask Makiah Shipp, a children’s author from Detroit, now a California transplant, who started her children’s literature business Makiah’s Bookshelf, in her senior year at the University of Michigan.
When Shipp was little, she traveled often. She said one of her refuges when things were in flux in her life, was to read a book. Then she was in another world where she found the support to get her through those times of transition. Books gave her the opportunity to discover new things and learn more about who she was. Today she is passing that experience forward with her company.
Makiah’s Bookshelf
Makiah’s Bookshelf is Shipp’s business name, a play on words that not only seems to represent her childhood love of books, but also her traveling book tour.
Her book tours are where she travels to present her books to audiences of school-aged children. Shipp said she had always wanted to write a book, and a college class finally gave her the chance. While at the University of Michigan, she was required to write one as part of a course she took, and so she did.
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“Makiah’s Show and Tell,” the book that launched Shipp’s business was written as a class assignment. Bitten by the writing bug, she wrote another book two months later,
“Makiah 4 President.” Illustrators and fellow college students, Hannah Anderson and Ebba Gurney provided the illustrations. Both detail events from Shipp’s own childhood and deal with themes of identity and about having the courage to live in an authentic way to who you are.
The book tour
While Shipp was in her last year at the University of Michigan, she toured local Ann Arbor public schools with her books alongside multimedia presentations relating to them. She would often visit up to three schools per day to reach as many kids as possible, while fitting in schoolwork and classes.
Shipp’s tour consists of interactive read-alouds that engage students, staff and teachers. During these presentations, she reads her books to a group assembly and takes questions afterwards. She also sets up trivia questions on a projector with accompanying pictures of herself as a school-aged child, as a way to create a conversation about the issues discussed in her readings.
For example, in one trivia question, she asks if the children remember the different terms, she uses to describe hair in the book and shows a picture of herself at their age to show them what she is talking about. These conversations are a way to empower the children to view themselves in a positive way just the way they are without feeling the need to change themselves to “fit in.” By having a positive adult role model interacting with them, who has also gone through similar issues, they can feel connected to a greater community, and hopefully feel less isolated.
Shipp, 22, is extremely proactive when it comes to her business. When she made up her mind to write a book, she went online to do some research, and the rest is history. She decided to go the self-publishing route instead of submitting manuscripts to publishing houses, and also networked amongst her college friends to find an illustrator. She organizes the content of her book tours herself, as well as all of the trivia questions, and appointment schedules.
It is often said that books have the power to change lives. And, for Makiah Shipp, that saying could not be more true.
