Indeed, when we change the narrative, we change the perception, and his children\u2019s book Gumbo Joy<\/em> adds another voice in changing the narrative. In the book, we see Rose and her Papa preparing gumbo together. As they are doing so, he is sharing not only his recipe, but the cultural significance behind it, followed by the joyful coming together of their extended family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A native of Louisiana, Dixon states in his bio that he \u201clearned these key aspects of cooking gumbo by going to all his neighborhood friend\u2019s homes in one day. He would eat at every person\u2019s home he stopped at.\u201d He did this after school and on weekends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Gumbo Joy<\/em>, we are reminded of the importance of a consistent, active, loving presence of a father in his daughter\u2019s life, thus contradicting the stereotype of Black men being absent fathers. Having Papa doing the cooking also challenges gender-role stereotypes, thus he is a well-rounded role model for Rose–in my household, because my husband likes to cook, our son has developed a flair for it as well. And of course, this book is a cultural celebration of the roots of gumbo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Often times, the greatest lessons our children learn take place when we are sharing a task or an activity. In this case, the greatest lesson Rose learns is, \u201cGumbo is the smell of love.\u201d Dixon fills his book with it, through his words and the illustrations of Amakai Quaye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gumbo Joy<\/em> is available via Amazon and the Planting People Growing Justice Press. Dads, this is a must-read to share with your children. Robert, thank you for this gift of love and changing the narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By Robert P. Dixon, Jr. Representation matters, even at an early age. I remember growing up as a child of the 1950s in Minneapolis, attending elementary school, going to the public library\u2014and seeing only books like Further Adventures of Dick and Jane. Where were the families who looked like mine? Fortunately, that situation is changing, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/GumboJoy-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter-e1738707240809.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":530,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions\/530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Robert-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter.jpg\")
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