“And hopefully, as life goes on, they will blossom up and have roots, take roots in young lives of the children who are hearing the words, and also in the lives of the adults who are reading the words,” Hill says. To Hill, the purpose of the affirmations and the book is to “plant seeds of positivity,” he says. ‘I am deserving.’ What does that mean? You’re deserving of someone that’s going to listen to you. “It’s that I am taking time with you to tell you how valuable you are, how important you are, how deserving you are. “It’s more than just saying these are the words that you can express yourself,” Simon says. The messages in the book can benefit not only the child to whom it is read but the adult reading it, Simon and Hill believe. “So that everyone who reads it, or everyone who has it read to them, can hear the words and find the value in themselves through the words that are being shared.” Seeds for the self “We worked to make sure the message could reach everybody,” Hill says.
“We took all of those out and just tried to make it as pure as we could,” she says. “Anything subjective, we tried to take it off the page, because everybody is beautiful and everybody is smart. “We don’t want anybody to feel like their self-worth was determined, like ‘I am pretty’ or ‘I am beautiful’ or things like that,” Simon says. The book, as with their at-home affirmations, avoids physical attributes and other subjective terms. “In the same way with Kennedy, ones we always used were, ‘We’re loved, worthy, ready.’” “If he’s feeling nervous about something, we’ll start with ‘I am brave’ or ‘I am courageous,’” she says of their son, who turned 4 this spring. Now those were workshopped on Levi, and still are used with him today, to see which would best be used in the children’s book. Simon remembered many of the affirmations she’d used with Kennedy when she was a child. Why don’t ‘we’ go back and revisit that.’” I don’t know if that rhymes as well as it could. “All I have to do is say, ‘You know what, baby, I think you’re missing a period there.
“I say this often – it’s very easy for me to become a partner to Jazmyn Simon because she’s a wonderful writer,” Hill says. ‘This what we’re doing, so here we go.’”īoth Hill and Simon laugh – “That’s exactly what he said,” she adds – before he continues. For myself, I said, ‘OK,’ and went along for the ride. “But knowing Jazmyn, it wasn’t surprising to me, because when she sets her mind to do something she gets it done. “I probably was in shock at the audacity of the statement,” he says. Hill, who currently stars on “The Wonder Years” and previously enjoyed long runs on “The West Wing” and “Psyche,” says he’s used to his wife coming up with an idea and jumping into action. Simon and Hill will appear at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena for a special storytime book event at 11 a.m. The book, “Repeat After Me: Big Things to Say Every Day,” is out now with words by Simon and Hill and illustrations by Shamar Knight-Justice.
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