Kids are humans, too — and A Kids Company About aims to reach them. 

The world may mistake their little bodies for little minds — but Jelani Memory does not. That’s why he created “A Kids Book About,” a book that told stories that talked to kids, not down to them. 

After the tremendous success with the book, Memory and his team decided to rebrand to A Kids Company About, which is an extension of the best-selling book series. The brand now goes beyond books — it includes conversations through podcasts, classes, and more that are for kids, by kids. The overall goal is to tell stories that meet kids on their level at all ages.

“From the beginning, we set out to tell stories that talked up to kids, not down to them, creating inclusive content from first-person perspectives and diverse voices,” said Memory in an official statement shared with AfroTech. “With this expansion, we can tell more stories from new voices, engaging kids where they need it most. This is the future of kids media — content that takes kids seriously and meets them exactly where they’re at.”

Memory recently sat down with AfroTech to further discuss the vision behind his company, changing the narrative that kids are “too young to understand,” and more!

The Vision

“The vision behind the company is really simple,” said Memory. “We want to empower a generation of kids through diverse storytelling and in it, the company was an extension of my book, my best selling book, that wasn’t intended to be a best selling book. It was one copy that I wrote for my kids.”

It was his own kids who encouraged him to further the book into a series.

“My kids said, ‘Dad, there’s a series here, you can make more books to add to “A Kid’s Book About,’” he continued. “It was really them who filled in the blanks when it came to creating the titles for the series. So really my inspiration was them and building a company around these empowering stories.”

Changing The Narrative

Memory further explains that when the world thinks about children at the adolescent age or the teenage years, there’s not a lot of content that caters to them.

“It seems like everything is made for them, but actually not a lot is built for where they’re at developmentally, where they’re at sort of content appropriate and where they’re at in their journey as young people,” he continued. “Once you’re 13, you opt into everything that’s made for adults. That’s movies, that’s social media, and ultimately those things are made for adults.”

He shared that this doesn’t mean that children should never be on social media, but that it is not designed to encourage, teach them, or to raise kids who are 12,13,14, etc.

“We looked at that age demographic and we looked at the stories that we were telling younger kids and we thought, ‘how do we meet this age demographic with stories that matter in the same way, but elevate them and speak to them where they’re at,’” Memory said. “And so that really became about being honest with them, respecting them, which is the one thing that every teenager wants, and yet can rarely ever get from a grown-up in their life.”

The Future

“My hope is that 10 years from now, when it comes to kids media, when it comes to the most important stories being told in the classroom, told at bedtime, and so forth, that kids of all ages are interacting with our stories because we are being more bold, more brave, more courageous and more thoughtful,” he concluded. “We are bringing voices that have desperately been needed to be heard for this next generation, that have been cast aside, or have been recast with white faces and male voices.”

Click here to learn more about A Kids Company About.