The Story Behind Change the Ref’s Harrowing Children’s Book

To reach lawmakers and raise awareness on the gun violence epidemic in the US, creative agency BCW partnered with the co-founders of the gun reform NGO Change The Ref, Patricia and Manuel Oliver. Together, they designed and produced a mock children’s book, telling the tragic story of the Olivers’ son, Joaquin ‘Guac’ Oliver, who was one of 17 people killed in a high school mass shooting in Parkland five years ago.

The book, ‘Joaquin’s First School Shooting’, was developed and created by BCW’s CCO Fede Garcia and ECD Diego Bartagni and describes a mass shooting to politicians in the most elementary way. However, this is not a book for children. The unignorable, dark tale, designed to provoke conversation and compel gun reform, was hand-delivered to politicians at Capitol Hill by Patricia and Manuel themselves - adding an extra layer of intimacy that forced the recipients to confront the effects of gun violence in the flesh. The campaign has also just won a Cannes Bronze Lion in the Direct – Social Behavior category.  

Speaking to LBB’s Ben Conway, Fede and Diego explain that the year-long creation process was sparked by some shocking statistics that revealed gun violence had overtaken car accidents as a cause of death in the US, and that 100 shootings had occurred in 2023 from January to May alone.

To continue the conversation around gun reform in the United States and push for legislative change, Fede says that BCW decided to partner with Change the Ref, describing the NGO’s “artsy direction” with its previous campaigns as a “perfect fit” for the creative he and Diego had in mind.

Taking inspiration from ‘The Lost Class’ and Change the Ref’s other deeply impactful and creative pieces of work, the CCO adds that the emotional element of the subject matter can pose a challenge for creatives. Perhaps an unexpected challenge for those outside of the US, he also says that people in America are gradually becoming desensitised, not just to the shootings but also to the campaigns.

Even though these campaigns are “great and incredibly creative”, says Fede, the public has become numb to them, thus preventing them from moving people emotionally and creating action. However, he says that Change the Ref - because of its history of creating powerful gun control projects -  was the ideal partner to “really go all out” and create something that could break past this growing mental block and effect real change.

“The way we love to do creative is [to do] that kind of creative which can now no longer be ignored, that can’t be unseen, that moves you in profound ways,” he says. “And in that sense, Change the Ref was kind of a perfect match for what we believe and the work that we do… We really do believe in work that moves people to create change, and in this particular case, to change the law and bring back the assault weapons ban.”

Diego says that the campaign evolved beyond marketing into a tool that is still being used over a month after its launch, with the book being reprinted and translated into other languaged. Describing it as a “mini platform” of its own, he adds, “We wanted to come up with a device that promotes change and opens doors.”

One way to create such an undeniable impact and avoid the detachment that the American public has towards video PSAs and other gun reform campaigns, was to make a physical product - like BCW’s storybook - and personally hand-deliver it to politicians.

Fede describes how even the creative team had become desensitised to this project, thanks to seeing the designs so many times and working on it for over a year - but everything changed when the completed book landed on his desk. “I had goosebumps just holding it up - and I’m very familiar with the book,” he says. “If you’ve never seen the book, you do a double-take… it feels like the most innocent thing in the world but upon a second reading you realise the message and it hits you like a hammer.” 

The decision to get Patricia Oliver to hand-deliver the books meant the politicians were forced to confront not just the story itself, but also the fact that the protagonist child’s mother was witnessing them reading the story too. “It’s a perfect juxtaposition of something that is very cute and very innocent until a very harrowing reality is revealed - it’s devastating,” Fede says. 

“It does the trick in a way that maybe no other creative vehicle - a video, billboard or print ad - would have,” he adds. “That element of giving somebody a book and having them open it up and read the first few lines with Patricia right in front of them… the impact is unignorable.”

Diego agrees, recounting how politicians of all ages, from all points along the political spectrum reacted with empathy towards the book and its message. They were visibly moved and, in subsequent interviews with the Olivers, shared that it hit home thanks to their childhood memories of reading storybooks and of reading books to their own children. “The juxtaposition between the tangible, cute object and the narration is so mind-boggling, I think it could only have been done with a tangible object.”

Due to this approach, the craft of the book itself was of the utmost importance. Fede shares that the team analysed every detail of the book, from the size and thickness of its pages to the colours, illustration style, how to depict the eyes of the dead and whether to show blood or not. “It’s an incredible book because it looks like a children's book, but then upon a second reading, you start seeing the harrowing story behind it. So the craft - even the position of the holes - everything was part of maximising that impact.”

Making all of these creative decisions was the most challenging part of the project, says Fede, sharing how the BCW team worked extremely collaboratively with Change the Ref founders Patricia and Manuel Oliver to incorporate their insights and tweaks. He explains how this teamwork transformed the idea from just ‘a storybook’ into a deeply personal narration of the Olivers’ son, Joaquin’s story, recounting how he lost his life in the 2018 Parkland shooting.

They included easter eggs and details from Joaquin’s story and went through “an incredible amount of iterations” before printing, Fede says, “It was quite a lengthy process, I would say quite a painful one too - but it was really rewarding in the end.” The book was legally published and therefore had to adhere to certain publishing guidelines, which in turn influenced some aspects of it design. For example, the two ‘bullet holes’ in the ‘O’ shapes in ‘shooting’ presented a perfect opportunity for the book’s finger holes - but whether they could even use the word ‘shooting’ on the cover was - at one point - under consideration, as just one of many questions that threatened the project’s success. 

Fede says, “It would have changed all of the illustrations because on the inside, the holes need to land on a kid - so lots of things needed to come together craft-wise.”

One of the other significant considerations was how a country so divided on this particular issue of gun reform would react to the campaign - especially one that “is designed to cause a stir and discussion”, as Fede says, while elevating the conversation around gun violence. Even if the project was to receive a negative backlash from detractors of the gun reform movement, the CCO adds that it comes with the territory and is simply an expected by-product of keeping the conversation alive.

Fortunately, the feedback has been “overwhelmingly good”, he says, despite the occasional naysayer erroneously accusing him of being a “puppet” for the elite. “The backlash or comments are always going to be there,” adds Diego, “but with this idea, we’re talking about kids and education… a lot of the ideas done before have targeted specific politicians. It’s about finding that middle ground that is probably not present in a lot of gun control ideas. [Even] if you’re a viewer against gun control, you’re not against bedtime stories or kids being safe at what should be their second safest place on earth.”

The first edition of the book was immensely popular, so much so that it sold out because of people buying the book to send to their local representatives. “For us, that didn’t just mean we needed to print out 1000 more books,” says Diego, “but it also showed that it wasn’t just a two-week campaign - people were being captivated and put in an active role, which is what the Olivers want.”

Fede adds, “The interesting thing is that the idea and the book keep growing every day. There’s more interest, coverage and people seeing it. We launch over a month ago and yet the conversation is still up there. That’s everything we wanted to do - to elevate the conversation - and the conversation keeps going. It’s an incredibly fulfilling project.”