A Book for Children: 'These ABCs Belong to Me!'

Press release

MCLEAN, Va. — In These ABCs Belong To Me!, author Alicia McKenzie, with illustrations by Sarah DeMonteverde, draws on her 18 years of parenting five children who are wildly different from each other, as well as her own real-life experiences as a biracial child with boundless energy and an opinionated streak, to create fresh, uplifting takes on 26 all-too-familiar critical and belittling words spanning the alphabet.

From “ambitious” to “messy,” from “timid” to “zany,” kids will discover how to reclaim the words that are commonly used as hurtful labels and transform them into confidence-boosting qualities that make them unique and are worth celebrating.

“As a child who watched my military dad suffer from severe PTSD, and taking a lot of his frustration out on my brother—this book is really about understanding that parents must take a breath and realize that every child has special qualities and is not always cut from the same cloth,” McKenzie assures parents. “Someone might use a word meant to limit or define your child, but it’s up to us as parents to teach them how to flip that script—turn a negative into something positive so that you and your child have the power to create their extraordinary narrative.”

These ABCs Belong To Me!
Publisher: The Collective Book Studio
Release Date: October 2025
ISBN: 978-1-68555-799-7
Available from: https://www.amazon.com/These-ABCs-Belong-Alicia-McKenzie/dp/1685557996