Hey there, it’s me, Carolynn Schwartz, aka SoulMama. I’m a singer, a songwriter, and a coloring book creator - among a gazillion other things.

This is my 14th book (I think) and my umpteenth original song, but it’s the first time I’ve put the two together. How did we get here? In Jan 2020, as an Artist-in-Residence with Arts for All Wisconsin, I was preparing to lead a music and movement class at a Headstart preschool program and wanted to come up with an original “Hello” song that was different from all the ones I had heard.

From a very young age, I have been very lucky in my life to have traveled all over the globe, and I know just how important it is to at least be able to say “hello” in the native language of the country one is visiting. So I picked twelve languages and set off to teach a room full of 3 and 4 year olds and their amazing teachers, the world through song.

It was a hit instantly and became part of my regular repertoire for children. In March 2020, the program was shut down along with the rest of the world due to Covid, and then in December 2020 my family picked up and moved to Connecticut.

It’s taken some time and energy but here I am in 2024 finally putting this all down in coloring book form. I plan to release a board book with music sometime this year, so be on the lookout for that.

This is the first real children’s song I have ever written and I love it because it gives children and their adults access to a whole world outside their own neighborhoods. The more we know, the more we can grow.

Carolynn. .