We live in a world full of stereotypes and categories that try to box people in. Children feel that weight first. Stories often repeat the same patterns: a Black child written only as the comic relief, or an East Asian character shown as nothing more than shy and quiet. These aren’t just tropes. They’re lessons. They teach children who gets to lead, who gets to feel deeply, and who is pushed into the background.

My hope with Sheepy was to gently disrupt that pattern. I began with a Black child at the center of the story, but it doesn’t end there. Representation isn’t a checkbox. It’s a doorway. It’s a mirror. It’s a spark. It gives children permission to imagine themselves as central, magical, worthy, and full of dreams. Not a supporting role. Not a stereotype. The star.

Even Sheepy himself, pink, fluffy, and still a boy, challenges the idea that colors belong to certain genders. He reminds us of what colors used to be. Feelings, expressions, little bursts of joy. Not rules or limitations.

Goodnight Sheepy may have started as a bedtime story. But Sheepy’s Dreamworld is something larger. A soft, sweet rebellion against the limits children are told to accept.

When we expand what is possible on the page, we expand what is possible in a child’s mind. And every child deserves that kind of magic.