I buy books myself. I know what it feels like to look at a price and hesitate. Books are not like videos.

The lens I use is migration. But migration is not only geographical.

When I was putting Parenting Unpacked together I made two choices that other authors warned me were risky.

I moved countries. What else moved took me years to name.

I wrote a first draft in six months and I was proud of it. Then Luciana Gomide read it and came back with something that was not quite criticism and not quite praise. She wanted more of me in the book. I pushed back.

I sent Dr. Débora Pasin an advanced reader copy of Parenting Unpacked and she came back with this: "Parenting Unpacked gives voice to the silent transformations that accompany parenthood, adaptation and the sense of belonging in times of change."

A mother saw the cover of Parenting Unpacked and told me what she would have chosen instead.

I posted casually on Instagram about presenting Parenting Unpacked at SIETAR Valencia 2026. Fifteen comments came back. Psychologists, writers, illustrators, friends, strangers. In Portuguese, in English, in emojis.

I used AI to generate what I had in my head — not as the final product, but as a visual brief so the illustrator knows exactly where the storytelling needs to go before she puts a single line on paper. Self-publishing lesson number one: if you cannot show an artist what is in your head, you will spend weeks describing something that could have been a two-minute conversation with a reference image.

I woke up to a voice message from Julia Kerscht Squassoni — intercultural facilitator, TCK, and President of SIETAR Brasil — saying she loved the Ruth Van Reken post and that I write beautifully, just in case nobody had told me that. Then I saw that Papa Balla Ndong, Human Migration Expert and Executive President of SIETAR Europe, had left a comment on the post about Parenting Unpacked. Parabéns. Wonderful. Congratulations, Jessica Gabrielzyk. In two languages. By name. I was not ready for any of it.

My book showed up in a Brazilian newspaper — and not just as a mention. It was understood.