Cynthia Erivo is adding the title of author to her already impressive list of career accolades. The Emmy, Grammy, and Tony winner just released her first-ever children’s book, Remember to Dream, Ebere.
To celebrate, Erivo held a reading of the book for local children at the new Tory Burch retail location in Soho, in partnership with the Children’s Museum of Arts.
On the surface, the book is a simple tale of a young girl with trouble staying asleep, periodically climbing out of bed to tell her mother what she saw in her dreams. However, the story also serves as a child’s guide to manifestation, encouraging them to dream the biggest and brightest dreams possible and helping them realize that their vision is in their own hands.
“One day, I was getting ready for a meeting, and the idea just sort of fell into my head fully formed,” Erivo said of writing the story. “I just wanted to share what I believe in, which is about dreaming in detail and putting all the nuances and colors you possibly can into your dreams and seeing them happen in real life.”
The story is a personal one for Erivo. Even the main character’s name, Ebere, is Erivo’s sister’s middle name which means hope and mercy. The story’s illustration, drawn by Charnelle Pinkney Barlow, beautifully depicts an unambiguously Black mother and daughter, each with natural hair. Ebere also wears various colorful eyeglass frames throughout the pages of the book.
“I need someone to really understand the story I want to tell, I want these characters to come to life, and when you turn the pages I want it to feel really special. I want it to feel like a gift,” Erivo said. “[Barlow] managed to pick out all the details and all the colors and on each page, there are little easter eggs,” she said. “The illustration means just as much to me as the story, and I was lucky enough to have Charnelle translate that for me.”
Tory Burch herself is a huge fan of Erivo’s first children’s novel. She approached the actress about holding the reading in her newly opened retail location in SoHo because of her belief in the book’s message and in Erivo as a role model.
“I’ve known Cynthia for a while, and I truly admire her and the way she highlights women and has such a powerful voice of good,” Burch said of Erivo. “She’s a woman of high substance and extraordinary storytelling. She’s a woman that could be a role model to so many young girls and boys, so it was a no-brainer.”
Burch believes Remember to Dream, Ebere is a return to classic form that could contend with some of the most timeless bedtime books for children.
“This book is a new classic. It reminds me of a new take on Goodnight Moon – something that you would read over and over again, and I just love that,” Burch said. “Children’s books today are a bit different, and I feel like this just brings back a very innocent way of looking at things, and gives kids a message of big, big gargantuan dreams before they go to sleep.”
“This book is a new classic. It reminds me of a new take on Goodnight Moon – something that you would read over and over again, and I just love that,” Burch said. “Children’s books today are a bit different, and I feel like this just brings back a very innocent way of looking at things, and gives kids a message of big, big gargantuan dreams before they go to sleep.”
As part of Burch’s ongoing commitment to supporting small businesses and local communities, all copies of Remember to Dream, Ebere were purchased from neighboring small bookstore McNally Jackson Independent Booksellers and Cafe in SoHo.
In addition to her first children’s book, Erivo’s first album Ch. 1 Vs. 1, released on September 17, is now available everywhere. She will also soon be starring in the Netflix film Luther alongside Idris Elba, the Apple anthology series Roar, and continuing to create Black stories through her production company, Edith’s Daughter.