Outspoken self-help author Nancy Redd is known for her tell-it-like-it-is candor on topics ranging from puberty and diet culture to miscarriage and postpartum depression. In her picture-book debut, Bedtime Bonnet (Random House, April 7), illustrated by Nneka Myers, she turns her attention to a seemingly lighter topic, but don’t let the adorable images and delightful plot twists fool you. Redd’s still serving up much-needed insight into underexplored topics—this time, black hair culture, from braids and twists to roller sets and locs, all colorfully wrapped in silken sleep caps, scarves, and do-rags.

There have been a number of picture books celebrating black hair. Why did you begin your story with the nighttime preparation that leads to daytime style?

Oh, because it’s a very crucial step, and I felt like it wasn’t getting its due. The bedtime bonnet is a staple, and it’s beloved. But when it was time for my daughter to wear her bonnet, she was not feeling the love. The only people she had seen wearing one were me and my mom, so she thought bonnets were for old people. The cartoon characters she watched didn’t cover their heads at night. There weren’t books about bonnets. I didn’t want my daughter to grow up with any stigmas about something that’s such a natural, normal thing. I look at my bonnet as [similar to] wearing eyeglasses. I cannot see without eyeglasses; my hair cannot be laid without a protective head covering. So if it’s something that is a necessity, we can’t have any shame around it.

Why was it important to make this an intergenerational story and showcase a variety of hairstyles and hair care?

Well, because we are so different. Children’s books are getting a lot better, but for the longest time, everybody [black] was the same color—that warm color of brown—and that’s not how we roll. Everyone in my family is a different shade of brown. That doesn’t make us any blacker or less black, but we don’t look alike. We don’t have the same hairstyles, either. Right now, I wear my hair curly, my mom wears her hair straight. She still wears a scarf to bed at night, sometimes over foam rollers. She still bobby pins pin curls in her bangs. The thing we share is the fact that we’re black and we wear something on our heads at night. That’s what the book expresses. That’s why it’s authentic and can speak to the joy of being black.

How does the picture book relate to your previous work?

It’s always important to me to defy stereotypes in my works of art. I’ve always done photographic guides specifically. If you look at the covers of my books, you will see that there are people you don’t typically see on the covers of books, especially my last one, my pregnancy book.

So it’s the same thing here. With the men in particular, it was important because I feel like we have so many stereotypes. If you think of a black man in a do-rag and a tank top, oftentimes negative connotations come up if you are not familiar with our actual joy and awesomeness. Right? So for me, contextualizing this happy family and breaking any kind of mold of negativity is very important, so that the only image of [a black man] in a tank top isn’t derogatory.

So you created the resource that you needed as a parent to put bonnets in perspective for your daughter?

It’s funny, when I came up with the book idea two and a half years ago, bonnets were not in the zeitgeist. Now we have an Oscar-winning bonnet in Hair Love. One of my favorite couple of seconds in the video is when her head is on her pillow. She’s the first cartoon character I’ve ever seen with a bonnet. And we’re seeing it more. Tia Mowry is constantly posting Cairo in that bonnet. One of the best moments in Love Is Blind, that show on Netflix, was when [the character] busted that bonnet out and the guy was like, cool. So I’m happy to be part of another movement of just being unapologetically black.

Maya Payne Smart is an Austin, Texas–based writer who muses on life, literacy, and literature at MayaSmart.com.