A Little Person Like You Whose Mommy Goes to Prison

Patty Prewitt

The cover of the new children’s book by Patty Prewitt published by Some People Press.

Some People Press has published its first children’s book, A Little Person Like You Whose Mommy Goes to Prison, by Patty Prewitt.

The book, created for very young children and their parents and guardians, makes the horrific process of losing a mother to prison understandable and manageable. For the story Patty tapped into her personal experience of being a mother to five young children when she was sent to prison. The sensitively rendered illustrations are by Yellow Moon, a friend of Patty’s and an artist currently incarcerated in Missouri.

From the afterword:

In the United States, nearly 150,000 mothers are incarcerated in prisons, leaving an estimated 1.3 million minors separated from their primary caregivers. Over 2,019,900 women are jailed in the U.S. every year, and 80% are mothers.

These millions of innocent children are cruelly torn from their support and are punished harshly. Some end up with families who may be ill-prepared to care for additional children. Some children end up in the bureaucratic foster care system. Some of them end up in juvenile detention. None are unscarred. The overwhelming number of children abandoned due to maternal incarceration end up behind bars.

Remember that these children are innocent victims. I beseech you to bring kindness and understanding to these wounded children and their mothers.

My children were 16, 14, 12, 10, and 8 when I was sent to prison for a crime I didn’t commit. During my nearly 40 years of incarceration, I met thousands of heartbroken mothers. I wrote this book for all our children and the trauma they experienced. Kids need to know they are not alone, and that their mothers love them with all their hearts.

—Patty Prewitt, Jane’s mom

I was 16 when my mother was incarcerated. My younger siblings and I didn’t know anyone in prison. A book like this could have helped us not feel so alone and given us hope that eventually we would have our happy ending. Which we finally did.

—Jane Watkins, Patty’s daughter