Jewel Kats is someone to confide in. Readers poured their hearts out in her international advice column. Family members and pals constantly share their experiences with her. Some secrets twinkle with happiness. Others are sad. Some involve real-life accounts of sexual abuse. Many women in Jewel’s life stem from a South Asian background. She’s heard far too many stories from sexual abuse survivors for her not to do something about it. So she got cracking.
During a children’s literature course at Toronto-based George Brown College, Jewel decided to research picture books available on this tough topic. To her dismay, there wasn’t a single fictional story out there documenting the experiences of an Indo-American girl or Indo-Canadian girl for that matter. It was then that Jewel decided to fill this void. She began to workshop “Reena’s Bollywood Dream” and before she knew it the manuscript was done. To her surprise, Jewel’s book sold in less than 48 hours.
She hopes “Reena’s Bollywood Dream” will help parents, teachers, doctors, police officials, and therapists address the subject of sexual abuse in an easy to understand format. She wants this book to empower today and tomorrow’s children. After all, they, too, should have a voice…