“This book is a crucial tool for parents, educators, and anyone who cares about the well-being of children who, through no fault of their own, are forced to bear the consequences of our country’s obsession with incarceration. For children who desperately miss their parents, feel confused, or are teased at school, this book can go a long way in letting them know that they are not alone and in normalizing their experiences.” —Eve L. Ewing
A little girl who misses her father because he's away in prison shares how his absence affects different parts of her life. Her greatest excitement is the days when she gets to visit her beloved father. With gorgeous illustrations throughout, this book illuminates the heartaches of dealing with missing a parent and shows that a little girl's love can overcome her father's incarceration.
Mariame Kaba is an educator and organizer based in New York City. She has been active in anti-criminalization and anti-violence movements for the past thirty years.
bria royal is a multidiscipliinary artist based in Chicago.
Mariame Kaba is an organizer, educator, librarian, and prison industrial complex (PIC) abolitionist who is active in movements for racial, gender, and transformative justice. Kaba is the founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots abolitionist organization with a vision to end youth incarceration. Mariame co-leads the initiative Interrupting Criminalization, a project she co-founded with Andrea Ritchie in 2018.
Kaba is the author of the New York Times Bestseller We Do This Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice (Haymarket Press 2021), Missing Daddy (Haymarket 2019), Fumbling Towards Repair: A Workbook for Community Accountability Faciltators with Shira Hassan (Project NIA, 2019), See You Soon (Haymarket, March 2022) and No More Police: A Case for Abolition with Andrea Ritchie (The New Press, Aug 2022).pport and tools for repair, restoration, and moving toward a future beyond incarceration.
bria royal is a multidisciplinary artist from Chicago.
Publication date: September 17, 2019
"In this sensitive and candid story, a child narrator explores the emotions she feels surrounding her father’s incarceration. Royal’s art has a spare, warm quality, with loose ink outlines and splashes of light pastel and citrus tones in the characters’ clothing and surroundings. Educator Kaba addresses the experiences related to parental incarceration head-on while emphasizing that there are a lot of different ways to be a family."—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Charming and heart-wrenching details in the flights of fireflies, bordered pictures in a photo album, and even the expression of the little girl when a classmate whispers, 'You know your daddy’s a criminal so that makes you one,' highlight the angst and resilience of the little girl. This straightforward consideration of children affected by the imprisonment of family members is necessary." —KIRKUS REVIEWS
“This book is a crucial tool for parents, educators, and anyone who cares about the well-being of children who, through no fault of their own, are forced to bear the consequences of our country’s obsession with incarceration. For children who desperately miss their parents, feel confused, or are teased at school, this book can go a long way in letting them know that they are not alone and in normalizing their experiences.” —Eve L. Ewing
Watch the full video of our event with Ruth Wilson Gilmore on Covid-19, Decarceration, and Abolition, hosted by Naomi Murakawa. Gilmore’s new Haymarket book Change Everything: Racial Capitalism and the Case for Abolition, will be released in February, 2021.
Buy a copy of Mariame Kaba’s new book Missing Daddy between now and October 4th, and we’ll donate a copy to an organization that works with children with incarcerated family members.
by Tara Betts, Tempest Hazel, et al.
