(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Jacqui Tricarico, Senior Correspondent for "One-on-One," and I am so honored to be joined now by Pooja Desai, also known as Tia Bua.

She is a storyteller and a children's book author, with her newest children's book out, "Tia Bua Believes in Your Magic."

It's so great to have you with us, Pooja.

- Thank you so much for having me, Jacqui.

I am so grateful for you being part of this journey.

- And, you know, let's start, let's learn more about this journey because we say Tia Bua, you are Pooja Desai, but Tia Bua is the character in this book and in a lot of these children's books that you've written already that not all of them have been released yet.

We'll get to that a little bit later.

But first describe to us, who is Tia Bua?

- So I'm both.

Tia Bua, basically, tia means aunt in Spanish, and it means aunt, and bua means aunt in Hindi.

So my nieces have been calling me Tia Bua.

It's been a way of like combining our cultures together.

And so basically it's Auntie Auntie, and that's what I am.

I am an aunt to these cute little nieces and nephews of mine.

- So for your, describe your background for us first, your professional background, and how it developed into mindfulness, because that is the overarching theme in this book, in this children's book.

So take us back a little bit in your professional career and how it evolved and kind of led to this path of you writing children's books.

- Oh, yes.

Okay.

So 27 years in healthcare, and it has been a wonderful journey.

I wear a lot of, as I say, a lot of different heels in my current organization.

I have, you know, how we came to mindfulness, I think in 2020, we all suffered a lot, you know, collectively, independently.

And during 2020, I was trained by my current organization to be a cognitive fitness coach, which we started taking call about 24 hours a day during, you know, the suicide crisis.

Because unfortunately there was, the burnout was real, and we had a lot of staff, you know, calling in, trying to just find help from being burned out.

And during that time, unfortunately, as I was also a pillar for my team, my family was also falling apart because I had a daughter who, unfortunately, got long COVID and was in and outta the hospital for 37 visits until we figured it out.

And when that happened, I realized that, you know, I failed her.

In essence, there was no, nothing like this book out then in 2020 to help them from being isolated.

You know, because she was over the age of 18, I couldn't stay in the hospital with her.

And giving her the tools and resources, you know, is the reason why I pushed to develop this book because it does help everyone, it helps control your mindset in these adult-like situations.

- Well, like you said, this book is available to children in many different ways.

Barnes & Noble, you can pick it up, you can pick it up on Amazon, but you made sure that it's getting into the hands of children that are in the hospital for a very various different reasons.

Why was that so important to you?

And how do you see firsthand them using it as a tool for them to understand those big feelings that can be associated with being in the hospital for so many different reasons, so many different health reasons?

- You know, being in Healthcare for 26 years and, you know, in different areas within a hospital, I always found that, you know, peds oncology, although hard floor to work on, you know, just having a resource like coloring was so important for them right before a test, you know, calming them down.

And I think that's really what, you know, really inspired me to want to do it because we know that they're there.

And for some of 'em, this is also their last chance of, you know, figuring out how to believe in their magic.

And, you know, helping them along in these horrible situations that they do encounter is very important to me, not just in a setting of, you know, within the family and healthcare, but underprivileged areas, you know, in urban areas where kids don't get these resources, and, you know, we're more punitive than we are helpful in those areas.

So I think that's what really inspired me to making sure that if you're sick, if you're scared, this was a safe book and a safe place.

- As parents, I have two little ones, being mindful is such a hard concept, I feel personally, to teach my children because it's hard for us as adults to be mindful all the time.

Can you give us right now just some helpful tips, tools that you could share with parents, caregivers?

Just a few ways that we can help our children be a bit more mindful because that mindfulness really is the essence of just being more caring and forgiving and accepting and so many different ways of life.

- Yes, absolutely.

The most important, and not that I've invented, you know, we've been hearing it for years and centuries, but taking a deep breath, that's so important and so, you know, underutilized.

Taking three deep breaths and helping control that mindset, whether you're in a, you know, situation where you're anxious or you're scared, that's the first step.

You know, understanding your tools, taking the child out of the element that they're in, you know, going outside for air, you know, giving the child a hug, even if they're not asking for one.

I think those have been very, sometimes with my 8-year-old, sometimes not so much, and then we practice it again.

But the most important thing that I truly believe in is taking that deep breath, taking that moment to pause and reflect, and it really does help.

And it's something that I highly encourage in all the settings that I'm in.

- And like you said, if you keep doing it, it does become part of your routine and helping children realize, it's not gonna always work the first time, but learning to have that as a tool that they can use to calm their mind, calm their body.

I know November 11th is an important date for you.

The first book, this book that was released was released November 11th of last year.

This, we're taping in October of 2024.

And I know your second children's book is gonna be released in November, November 11th, 2024.

Talk about the next book that we're gonna see.

And this is the second book of 30, am I right?

You've already written- - Yes.

- 30 children's books and you're gonna just start releasing them every year.

- Correct.

And they tap into a lot of different situations.

The first book was the introduction of, you know, "Believing in Your Magic," and that was released 11.11 of last year.

And that gives you the breathing tool and it gets you there.

And the second book is "Tia Bua Celebrates Being Mixed, Blended, Colored, and Loved."

It's, you know, a first step for us to teach diversity and inclusion at a very young age.

And, you know, a way for us to check our biases and just know that, you know, how we treat our kids is how they're going to grow up and treat either their children, or in an employee setting, treat their employees.

So if there's a way where we can raise kinder humans, I feel like the workforce will actually benefit from it, you know, later.

So it's two folds.

I hope to tackle them while they're younger so that we can have better leaders when we're older.

- Definitely, important concepts we need to and should be teaching our children now.

Thank you so much for joining us, Pooja, to share more about your book and the many other, it sounds like another 29 that are gonna be released now from Tia Bua.

Thank you so much, Pooja.

- Thank you so much, Jacqui.

Follow the magic.

- We thank you so much for watching, we’ll see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by New Jersey Children’s Foundation.

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Newark Board of Education.

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And by The Adler Aphasia Center.

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