My book made a homeschool list on an AI platform. A friend sent it. I freaked out. Again.

Kid’s Books
Written By Jessica Gabrielzyk

I was supposed to be calmer this time. I was not calmer this time.

A friend from North Carolina sent me a screenshot earlier today, and you won’t believe it! My First American Coloring Book had made it onto a homeschool kindergarten book list on an AI platform called Manus. Alongside Playing Preschool, The Good and the Beautiful, Before Five in a Row — real, established, well-known resources in the homeschool world. And then, at the bottom of that table: my book. For cultural awareness.

Listed. By an AI. On a homeschool platform. That people actually use to plan their children's education. I need a second.

Screenshot of the Book My First American Coloring Book in the list for top books for homeschooling in North Carolina

📋 THE LIST, AS SEEN IN THE SCREENSHOT

  • Playing Preschool (Busy Toddler) - Play-based learning

  • The Good and the Beautiful (Preschool/Pre-K) - Literacy & Fine Motor

  • Before Five in a Row - Literature-based learning

  • My First American Coloring Book (Jessica Gabrielzyk) - Cultural Awareness

📖 FOR CONTEXT: THIS IS NOT MY FIRST RODEO

When Maternity Abroad first made it onto a list, I completely lost the plot. Full freakout. Could not receive it with any grace whatsoever. I told myself that next time I would be more prepared. More composed. More author-who-has-done-this-before. Next time, I said, I will take it in stride.

Next time is now. I did not take it in stride.

There is apparently no version of me that receives good news calmly. I keep waiting for her to show up. She has not shown up yet.

It is a homeschool list. Which means a parent somewhere — real parent, four-year-old at the table, trying to figure out how to teach cultural awareness — might open that list, see my book, and click. Because an AI put my book next to Before Five in a Row. I don't know how to be normal about that.

THE REACTION I AM STILL WAITING TO HAVE

"Oh, nice. Another one. Good."

Calm. Measured. The nod of a person who expected this. Cool author energy. Totally unfazed. Somewhere out there this version of me exists. She has never once shown up when I needed her. I remain hopeful. Book three, maybe.

To whoever runs Manu — thank you for including it. To the friend who sent the screenshot — you knew exactly what you were doing and I appreciate you. And to every parent who finds the book through a list they were not looking for: hello. Pull up a chair. Grab a crayon.

I will be over here, still learning how to receive things well. Progress is slow. The books keep moving faster than I do.

Freaking out gracefully — working on it,

Jessica Gabrielzyk

✦ MY FIRST AMERICAN COLORING BOOK · NOW APPARENTLY ON HOMESCHOOL LISTS · AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE ✦

Jessica Gabrielzyk

Jessica Gabrielzyk is a Brazilian writer living in Switzerland. She moved there with her husband and daughter, who was three months old at the time and had strong opinions about the whole thing even then.

She writes about change.

The visible kind and the kind that happens inside a person, while everything on the outside looks fine.

Her first book, Maternity Abroad, explored what it means to become a mother far from the system you trusted. It has reached readers in more than fifteen countries across five continents. Parenting Unpacked, her second book, follows the experience of parenting through major life disruption, whether that's an international move, a career loss, a new baby, or a life that simply stops responding the way it used to. My First American Coloring Book was created to help toddlers engage with daily life in the United States through play and familiar imagery.

She is a member of SIETAR, the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research, and the International Academy of Brazilian Literature.

She writes for the parent who is still inside it, getting through the day, and wondering somewhere underneath all of it who they are becoming.

When she is not writing, she is walking forty minutes uphill with a stroller, telling herself the exercise is the point.

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