Can you remember what it was like to be in fifth grade, in a home room class away from your best friends for the first time? If you had a human-made robot to help you adapt to your new normal, would that have made things easier?
Multi-hyphenate Eve Ewing — author, sociologist, poet, playwright, former middle school CPS science teacher, and current assistant professor at the Crown Family School of Social Work at the University of Chicago — poses that scenario in her latest literary endeavor, “Maya and the Robot,” an illustrated novel for young readers that looks at change through the lens of a Chicago girl with a love of science and a forgotten homemade robot who comes to life just when she needs a friend and a science fair project.
What unfolds on the pages as Maya flexes her science skills and curiosity muscles is Ralph the Robot becomes a part of her family and community. As Maya learns how to make new friends, we also see other themes, including gun violence, an introduction to difficult conversations between adults and youth, and the power that one wields even when they think they have no power or control over their environment.
“I always knew that I wanted to write a children’s book at some point in my life,” Ewing said. “I think that children’s books are really the literature that most of us use as the foundation of our lives as readers. The books that we read as young people are the books that often stick with us and inspire us for the rest of our lives. As a former public-school teacher and an avid reader myself, children’s literature is very important to me.”
Ewing’s timeline for her book was on the 5- to 10-year-plan, but her young niece’s robot obsession sped that timeline up, she said. A visit to a robotics specialist at the Museum of Science and Industry had Ewing’s niece saying: “I just wish I could have a robot to go everywhere with me and be my best friend.'”
“Since then, the image of a girl and her robot really stuck with me,” Ewing said. “Once those characters entered my head it was like, I couldn’t stop until they were on the page, and that was summer of 2017 and four years later, here’s the book.”
We talked with Ewing about STEM, her homage to notable children’s book authors and her upcoming literary works. The following interview has been condensed and edited.
Q: How did you land on the themes in the book?
A: In trying to write this book, my goal was to try to write a book like some of the great books that I read when I was Maya’s age. Those books made me feel like my emotional life as a young person was serious. I think that’s why certain books by some of the great authors like Beverly Cleary who the robot Ralph is named after — Ralph from “The Mouse and the Motorcycle” that’s my little homage to Beverly Cleary. Some of these authors that have been with us for generations is because they take young peoples’ lives seriously. And in the life of somebody who’s 8, 9 or 10, children are not immune to having to face the consequences of the hard parts of our society, whether that be COVID-19 or whether that be, as in the case of the book, the consequences of gun violence. Those things impact the lives of children every single day. And at the same time the kind of everyday conflicts: A teacher mispronounces your name, somebody in your class is unkind to you, you don’t get a chance to talk to your friends when you need them. Those things are also very serious events in the emotional life of a young person and I wanted to try to treat those things with gravity and sincerity.
Q: What does your niece think about the book she inspired?
A: She’s very proud. One thing I’ve made clear to her is that Maya is a fictional character. She’s inspired by her but I’m really grateful that she’s gotten to grow and be her own pretend person in my head. I also didn’t want to put the pressure on the kid. I had this nightmare of my niece being 30-years-old and being on a date or something and somebody being like, ‘oh my god, you’re the kid from the book,’ so this is definitely a fictional version of the story, but I’m glad that she gave me the inspiration.
Q: You penned Marvel’s “Ironheart” with Riri Williams as an engineering genius. Was it an easy segue to do a children’s book about STEM?
A: I started my CPS career as a science teacher. I’m very passionate about science. It was a favorite topic of mine when I was a kid, and as a science teacher, I had parents who would come to me, and say ‘my daughter never cared about science until she was in your class and now she says she wants to be a doctor, an engineer.’ It was so moving to me to know that I could play a small role in helping young girls, and specifically young girls of color, see that this is a viable pathway for them. As a lover of books, when I was a science teacher, I was always looking for crossover opportunities and works of literature that touch on science themes. It was hard to find really good ones and contemporary ones. And I wanted some good novels that would slide the science content in there. There’s quite a bit of real science in the book and I hope that science teachers as well as language arts teachers will see opportunities to collaborate and to see Maya models the research and inquiry process; she explains certain things to her friends; there’s some real content about machine learning and Artificial Intelligence, as well as some other fun science stuff. That was definitely a big motivation for me — to try to write a really fun book that was engaging in terms of the story, but that also could launch kids who may or may not see themselves as being curious about science down that path.
Q: There’s always a Chicago connection in your stories. Have you ever had a publisher say: We need you to write something that’s not set in Chicago?
A: Maybe it’ll happen eventually. I don’t know. I’m a big believer in the old writing adage: Write what you know. I think that we have a lot of great stories to tell here. It was really special to me to show the details of Maya’s neighborhood, which is kind of inspired by multiple streets that I lived on growing up, different neighborhoods around Chicago. She lives in an unnamed neighborhood and I hope that people in all parts of the city as well as all parts of the country in the world will kind of project their own little diverse neighborhood onto to where Maya lives. There was some parts of “Ironheart” that took place in Boston, so there’s that.
Q: Do you think we’ve gotten a little better as a society when it comes to speaking truth to STEM and making it accessible for Black and brown little girls?
A: I think people are more aware of race and gender disparities in STEM and I think that awareness is a really important first step. But it’s a long way to go in terms of the numbers of Black women or women of color generally getting degrees in the sciences, getting Ph.D.s in the sciences, getting those higher research accolades and those are really important because that’s how you change the face of the field over the long term. It can’t just be young women entering at entry level positions and then having that curiosity dissuaded when they try to pursue higher study. The impact of diversity in STEM has been demonstrated this year as it’s been really crucial to have, just look at Kizzmekia Corbett who is an amazing physician and scientist who is one of the pathbreaking people who brought us the COVID vaccine. For a person like her to get where she is, there’s so much that has to happen and there are so many pitfalls along the way that are discouraging for young women of color who could really thrive in these fields. I do still think we have a long way to go but I’m glad that people are paying more attention to the issue.
Q: What’s the next chapter that fans can look forward to from your academic/literary adventures?
A: There are a couple exciting collaborations I’m working on that I cannot talk about right now, but two things: We’re still working on developing my first book “Electric Arches” into a television show, so that’s something I’ve been working on. I’m also thrilled that “1919,” my third book is going to be adapted into a play at Steppenwolf Theatre, and that’s going to be in-person in the upcoming season. I am working really hard on my next book “Original Sins,” another nonfiction book about anti-Blackness and anti-Indigeneity in the history of public schools. Another project that I’m working on is a graphic novel project. I can say no more but it’s … it’s something extremely cool.
Semicolon Books will host a virtual launch event in conversation with Ewing and Jacqueline Woodson July 13 at 6 p.m.; 57th Street Books and Women & Children First will run in-person signings July 14 at 3:30 p.m. and July 15 at 4 p.m.; and nonprofits Burst Into Books (July 16 at 5 p.m.) and Open Books in Pilsen (July 17 at 12 p.m.) will distribute hundreds of free copies donated by Ewing to the young readers in their communities at in-person signings. Visit eveewing.com/events to register for the ticketed Friday and Saturday events.
‘Maya and the Robot’
By Eve L. Ewing, Kokila, 224 pages, $16.99
