It All Started With A Red T-Shirt

We get asked this a lot: “You called your publishing company what? Why?”

Well, it’s a good story, and believe it or not, there’s no better time to tell it than during Women’s History Month. There are two reasons for our name, and both of them have to do with making sure little girl thinkers find space in conversations about big questions.

Reason #1: You may have noticed, but one of our feature characters (our first one, actually, from our ThinkAboutIt series), Sophia the Wise, wears a funky red t-shirt. Even in children’s illustrations, wardrobe choice matters. We wanted Sophia to wear something gender-neutral, a staple that any little thinker, male, female, or nonbinary, could sport comfortably. A simple red t-shirt seemed to fit the bill. Since her original design, Sophia has donned costumes, uniforms, sporting equipment and more, but her signature shirt speaks the loudest about her passion for knowledge, her enthusiasm, and her energy.

Reason #2: We were inspired by Canadian poet Margaret Atwood’s work “A Red Shirt“. This poem is about a couple of women sewing something new for a little girl, and it challenges all kinds of myths about being female. It ponders how we can open doors for the next generation, and help ensure that they face fewer limitations.

In philosophy, as in many fields, women are often underrepresented. When we set out to build a company that focused on thinking skills, we wanted to make sure everyone felt welcome in our narratives. In addition to our company name and our first intrepid female narrator, we made sure to feature famous women thinkers, to pose big questions and create lesson plans that didn’t hinge on gender. We also included thinkers from around the world, and from a bunch of different eras in time. We really wanted all little thinkers, no matter how they identified, to be able to open one of our books or play with one of our apps, and think “Yup, there I am!”

For us, a red t-shirt speaks of diversity and inclusion, but also of passion, enthusiasm, fun, and wonderful childhood curiosity. We hope you and your red T kid enjoy all of the materials we’ve created around these very important values.

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I Am A Lifelong Learner.

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Big Lesson: Think Before You Speak…Or Type.