Anika Noni Rose wants us all to be nicer to ourselves.
The Tony Award–winning actor, singer, and storytime series host—perhaps best known for voicing Princess Tiana in Disney’s The Princess and the Frog—has written Tiana’s Perfect Plan (Disney Hyperion, October), a picture book that teaches kids the importance of self-forgiveness.
“Things don’t always go the way you want them to go, and yet they still turn out right, they turn out okay,” Rose told attendees at the Closing Session of the American Library Association’s 2024 Annual Conference and Exhibition in San Diego on July 2. “I want [children] to be able to experiment and experience without shackling them to the word perfection.”
Tiana’s Perfect Plan, illustrated by Olivia Duchess, is Rose’s first book and follows the adventures of Princess Tiana in preparing a New Orleans Mardi Gras celebration for her royal in-laws. Rose told session moderator, bestselling middle-grade fiction author Kwame Mbalia, that experiencing the editing process was an adjustment.
“As a creator, for someone to come and then adjust your creation, that’s really tough,” Rose said. “The safest I am as a performer is on stage—you can’t edit me on stage.”
But writing a book has been a lifelong dream for Rose, who was an avid reader growing up. She recalled that her grandmother, a teacher, would often ask her, “Don’t you want to go outside?”
“Books are the best way to travel, if you can’t buy a ticket,” Rose said. “To be able to do something in this space is so thrilling to me.”
She told the crowd she still remembers the smell of Bloomfield (Conn.) Public Library’s Prosser Library from her youth.
“I remember when you had to look up a book not by using a computer but by getting a paper cut,” Rose joked. “Being at the library was like being at an amusement park. You could get everything at the library, and there was no time limit. You could be there for hours.”
Rose said that at different points in her life, she has been inspired by different books and series. As a kid, she devoured Aesop’s Fables, The Bluest Eye, The Velveteen Rabbit, the Wrinkle in Time series, and vampire fiction from Anne Rice. She would even read her parents’ copies of The Color Purple, The Godfather, Helter Skelter and Jaws.
“If they had known, they might have curbed that Helter Skelter,” Rose laughed.
What does Rose hope readers take away from her own book?
“Give ourselves some grace—we all make mistakes,” she said. “We have to give ourselves some room to be something other than perfect, and just be.”
