Jeanine DeHoney is the author of the new children's picture book This Sunday My Daddy Came to Church. She is also an educator, and she lives in Pennsylvania.
Q: What inspired you to write This Sunday My Daddy Came to Church?
A: Growing up, I used to go to my maternal grandmother’s church in Brooklyn with my mother and sister. We’d usually leave to go to her apartment on a Friday evening or early Saturday. On Sunday we all got dressed in our Sunday best and walked the few blocks from my grandmother’s apartment to her neighborhood church.
My father, a jazz musician who played the saxophone, though, very rarely attended church with us. Instead, when we came back home, he’d have a delicious meal he prepared waiting for us, and jazz music playing in the background.
I was very close to my father, his mini shadow who was always underfoot. I never wanted anyone to judge him because he didn’t attend church services with us. I knew from seeing him pray and wear his rosary and also how he helped others, that he definitely was a man of faith but worshiped in his own way.
One day while thinking about my father, my heart full and warm, with memories, I felt led to write about that aspect of my childhood with him.
Q: What do you think Robert Paul Jr.’s illustrations add to the story?
A: Robert Paul Jr.’s illustrations truly brought this story to life. He is an exceptional, award-winning illustrator and I was so honored he took on this project. He conveyed each of the characters emotions exactly as I had hoped for. He captured the playful and the serious tone of this book and most of all showed the loving and accepting bond between a family.
I can only describe my feelings after seeing the finished illustrations upon receiving my advance copies as taking my breath away. They were breathtaking.
Q: How did you create your character Omar, and how would you describe the dynamic between him and his parents?
A: It was so easy to create the character Omar because he is so much like me when I was his age and how I was with my parents, just a different gender.
Omar and I as a little girl are kindred spirits. I just had to close my eyes and envision being in my home with my parents; the love, the laughter, the music, the food, and how both my mother and my grandmother encouraged me to always have faith as small as a mustard seed.
Omar had very good dynamics with his parents. He shared the experience of going to church with his mother and truly enjoyed going. He was also able to communicate his honest feelings to both of his parents when he felt sad about his father not attending services with them.
Though a young boy, as their son, they didn’t disregard his feelings or dodge his questions. Even when children don’t get the answer they may want or even deserve, they need to feel heard and seen. And thanks to Omar’s close loving bond with his parents, he was heard and seen.
Q: What do you hope kids take away from the book?
A: I hope that kids take away from This Sunday My Daddy Came to Church the heart of this story, which is familial love, acceptance of others in their beliefs, and the importance of holding on to faith.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am always working on several writing project. I have picture book ideas I am working on, and also an adult novel and a middle grade novel. I also continue to write and submit to literary and mainstream magazines and lately I have been entering literary contests as often as I can.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I love collecting quotations and putting one or two on sticky notes around my computer desk. My favorite one is a quotation from the great novelist Toni Morrison: “If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
That’s what I’m trying to do, like so many other awe-inspiring authors, write that book I want to read that hasn’t been written yet, hoping it lands in the hands and hearts of readers who need my words the most.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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