Growing up multiracial, I struggled with my ethnic identity.

I was teased as a child and often called a zebra. In my young adult life, I went to school for early-childhood and elementary education. I was a preschool teacher for many years, and during that time, I met a lot of children of different races and ethnicities.

I was inspired to write this book for children to let them know that despite their differences, they are all special. Creating Hey Zebra allowed me to take a word that I once viewed as a negative and turn it into a positive.