By Katie McFadden

“Grandma’s got a mouse in the house,” and Far Rockaway resident Sharmeika Davis-Boyd has a lesson for kids of all ages: Treat everyone the way you want to be treated. Since releasing her first children’s book in 2022, Davis-Boyd has been on a mission to spread the word, holding readings near and far and, most recently, offering her work as part of the collection of the brand new Far Rockaway Library, but it’s all part of a larger goal to bring something even bigger than “a mouse” to the peninsula.

As a grandmother of nine, Davis-Boyd found not being able to see her grandchildren difficult during the Covid pandemic. “I was so depressed not being able to see them and that was bothering me. I suffer from anxiety and when the pandemic hit, it reached its limit and I said, ‘Sharmeika, you need to find a way to channel your energy into something,’ and something inside of me told me to write children’s books. When I thought about my grandchildren, the writing just flowed out of me,” Davis-Boyd said, adding that she had never written a book before. Her husband, Laron Boyd, even helped with some of the characters. “My husband had drawn a character when he was younger and when I was writing, he brought me this character of a little boy and I said we’re going to jazz him up a bit and put him in the books. That character became Mr. Knozi, a play on the word ‘nosey’, representing children’s natural curiosity and encouraging them to ask questions and be curious in a positive way. Mr. Knozi became a central character in her books, and Davis-Boyd wrote each story with the goal of teaching an important life lesson at the end.

Before she knew it, she had 13 children’s books. “I couldn’t think about this world anymore and not being able to see my grandchildren. I knew that when I saw them again, I would read them all these stories,” she said. And that’s exactly what she did. “When everything became possible again and my grandchildren came, I started reading the stories to anyone who would listen,” she said.

And then the feedback started coming in. These books were good. And the idea came that other families could benefit from a place where children could build a deeper connection with their grandparents and focus their energies on something positive. Davis-Boyd founded the brand Qikykidz – Quality in Keeping Your Kids in Da Zone. “We grew up in the zone where we were kids, had fun and didn’t want to grow up fast, but today kids are trying to grow up too soon and they have their faces on their phones all the time and we want to change that. My goal as a grandmother is to grow this community facility where grandchildren and grandparents can come together and interact and play with them, read with them, learn with them and have fun. So our ultimate goal is to create a permanent place for that,” Davis-Boyd said. “I feel like grandparents don’t get the respect and recognition they deserve and I think it would do us all good to be with our grandchildren and share our wisdom with them and we need a place for that.”

So Davis-Boyd hopes that the sales of her books will help realize her dream of creating such a facility for Qikykidz. In 2022, she researched ways to start self-publishing, she found an illustrator to bring her stories to life, and Palmetto Publishing was interested in getting her books out there. In April 2022, Davis-Boyd published her first book in the series, “Grandma Has a Mouse in Her House.”

“When the book was finished and I read it to everyone, the message of treating everyone the way you want to be treated really resonated with people and I thought, OK, this is the book that’s going to make a difference, so let’s get it out there,” Davis-Boyd said. As Davis-Boyd worked hard to get her work known on the Peninsula, she gained some fans. “It’s incredible because to this day, when someone tells me their kids keep reading it, it hits me like the first time, and that feeling never goes away. It’s a proud moment every time,” Davis-Boyd said.

But her biggest fan may be the one she dedicated the book to – her mother, Anna Louise Davis. “I dedicated the book to my mother because she was very ill when I wrote the book and I wanted to surprise her with it, but she was very ill and in the hospital and she told me and my sister that she didn’t want to live with that pain. We left thinking that she was going to leave this world. But I told her that I wrote this book and I wanted to dedicate it to her and use the money from it to help her for the rest of her life and the next day I came into the hospital and she was sitting up in her bed and said, ‘Sharmeika, read me the book again.’ I really think that brought her back to life, knowing that she’s in this book and the world is going to see her name on the first page,” Davis-Boyd said. “That’s proof to me that I was meant to write these books. It brought my mother back to life and now she comes to book signings with me and signs the first page with her name.”

Davis-Boyd recently attended the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Far Rockaway Library and is currently going through the process to be officially added to the shelves. She has since come to the attention of many others, such as Assemblywoman Khaleel Anderson, City Councilwoman Selvena Brooks-Powers and the BRIDGE Family Enrichment Center, all of whom have invited her to events to spread the word about her work.

Grandma Has a Mouse in Her House is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and most online bookstores. She is working on publishing two more books in the series, but lacks the funds to fully move the process forward. After celebrating her 50th birthday last week, she immediately gave some of her birthday money to her publisher as she gets closer and closer to full publication. For updates on these future books and book readings, follow qikykidz on Instagram or visit her website at: www.quikykidz.com

In the meantime, Davis-Boyd is open to anyone offering help with the publishing process, building her website, getting her book into libraries, and other advice. She can be reached via email at [email protected] or [email protected].