What should kids know about George Floyd's murder? Minneapolis author answers with moving picture book.

Much of Shannon Gibney's work has been inspired by her children.

After George Floyd's 2020 murder, which happened near where her family lives and just a couple blocks from her daughter's school, it became clear she needed to write "We Miss You, George Floyd." The children's picture book deals with the aftermath of the murder.

The main character in the book is unnamed, but she's based on Gibney's daughter Marwein Corvah, who's now 10.

In the book — and in real life — she's a young girl who has questions about the murder, the Black Lives Matter movement and what talk about defunding the police means. Marwein turned to art to help her make sense of the world. So does the character in the book. (Its illustrations are by Leeya Rose Jackson, who drew inspiration from Marwein and her art-filled bedroom.)

"Living in our neighborhood, with the aftermath and the riots and also the white nationalist groups that came in and were wreaking their own havoc, we set up a neighborhood watch and my daughter was part of that — 'we' meaning my neighbors and us. It just felt really raw, really visceral, sort of out of control for a little while. And, of course, everything was exacerbated by the pandemic," said Gibney, a professor at Minneapolis College and the Minnesota Book Award-winning author of "Dream Country" and "The Girl I Am, Was and Never Will Be."

In the months after Floyd's murder, the family (including Gibney's son, Boisey Corvah) often walked from their south Minneapolis home to George Floyd Square, where they saw people singing and dancing, sharing stories and food. But Gibney said it was clear her children needed more.

"People think kids don't pick up on stuff because they might not have the language for it yet, but they can feel it. My daughter was, like, 6 when that was going on and my son was 10, but I could see it affecting them," said Gibney, who's quick to dismiss the idea that children need to be sheltered, for as long as possible, from events like Floyd's murder.

"There was a woman who had this tweet — I don't remember who it was — but she had a tweet about the Jan. 6 attack on the capitol and wrote, 'Don't we need to shield our kids from this? Why do we need to write about this?'" Gibney recalled. "My response is that that is a white question. Any Black parent knows we have to talk about this stuff with our kids. If we don't, we're not protecting them."

But the book — one of just two of her many books that Gibney says poured out of her in roughly its final form — is not just for Black kids and parents.

"I think for the moral and psychological health of white children, they also need to talk about this stuff with caregivers and teachers and parents and caring people in their communities. That's part of what I really hope this book can do: give all those folks I just mentioned some sort of place to start, to develop a shared language to talk about this stuff," said Gibney (who sometimes reviews books for the Minnesota Star Tribune).

The writer and teacher has spoken with kids about their concerns in visits to Bancroft Elementary School, which Marwein attends and Boisey attended. Gibney met kids whose families had been directly affected by the unrest after Floyd's murder, including having their businesses burned. Her experience was that while these kids knew about the murder and were curious about its aftermath, many of them remain traumatized by things that happened when they were too young to process them.

"There's a line in [the book] about how we can imagine a world without police violence because we can imagine a world without police. Some kids really seized on that: 'We can't have a world without police. We have to have police to stop crimes.' And I would say, 'Do police really stop crimes?' " Gibney recalled, adding that kids saw many possibilities. "One kid said, 'We could take all that money and put it into housing and food.' And these are third graders!"

Even before its release, writing the book was an act of healing for Gibney, who thinks of writing as a sacred way to work through her experiences and feelings. She began work on "We Miss You" four years ago.

"It feels like, for me, you work with something for a while on your own and then, if you're lucky, with one or two other people — a good editor and, for children's picture books, a good illustrator. Again, if you're lucky, it goes out into the world and other people encounter it and interpret it and experience it through their own lenses," said Gibney, who can't wait to find out what readers make of her new book. "It's this beautiful process. It comes back to you, but it comes back different. I love that process so much."

Floyd's family is aware of "We Miss You," but was not involved in its creation. One person who was, though, is an early fan.

"Oh, Marwein loves it," said Gibney. "She has told me she's proud of me and I think it just creates more opportunities for her and her peers to work through this whole mess of what happened and how it impacted where we're at right now."

Now, it's her other kid's turn to step into the spotlight. Boisey was the inspiration for the main character in Gibney's "Sam and the Incredible African and American Food Fight," published in 2023. He even read the book aloud at one of the book's launch events. He will return for a longer stay in Gibney's current project: a planned trilogy of middle-grade books about Boisey and his pals.

In the trilogy and in all her work, Gibney said she feels guided by forces beyond her control.

"I always tell my students that our job as writers is to perfect our craft so that we can hook into this thing that exists beyond language," said Gibney. "We're translating it. As the writer, it's not you. You're just the messenger, and that's why it can happen that people will read your book and say, 'I saw this, too. I had the same experience.'"

We Miss You, George Floyd

By: Shannon Gibney, illustrated by Leeya Rose Jackson.

Publisher: University of Minnesota Press, 32 pages, $17.95.

Events: 6 p.m. Nov. 12, Moon Palace Books, 3032 Minnehaha Av., Mpls. Free. 1 p.m. Nov. 16, Hosmer Library, 347 E. 36th St., Mpls. Free. Both events include readings, discussion and art projects.