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Miss Rachel: Educator, author, & children’s champion (#464)

  • Rick LeCouteur
  • 2 days ago
  • 5 min read
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If you’re caring for a toddler in 2025, there’s a good chance a cheerful woman in pink overalls has already moved into your living room.


Most people meet Miss Rachel on a screen - singing, signing, and narrating her way through letters, numbers, and first words.


But lately, many parents are meeting her in a different place: on the bookshelf. With titles like Ms. Rachel and the Special Surprise and 100 First Words, she’s now a bona fide children’s book author as well as a global media presence.


Behind the Miss Rachel persona is Rachel Griffin Accurso, an educator and award-winning songwriter with serious academic credentials. She holds a master’s degree in music education from NYU and is pursuing a second master’s in early childhood education, along with additional training in speech development and early intervention.


Her hugely popular YouTube series Songs for Littles (now known simply as Ms. Rachel) started in 2019, inspired by her own son’s speech delay and built around research-based strategies to support early language development.


The books are a natural extension of that work. Her debut picture book, Ms. Rachel and the Special Surprise: Encouraging Speech and Learning Through Play and Music, brings her interactive, call-and-response style onto the page, inviting little readers to say sounds, open imaginary boxes, and act out movements, all in the service of speech and social-emotional development. The book quickly became a #1 New York Times bestseller, suggesting that parents were very ready to meet Ms. Rachel away from the screen.


She followed it with 100 First Words (Ms. Rachel), a sturdy board book that pairs clear photos with developmentally important vocabulary - think mama, dada, up, ball - organized into intuitive categories for babies and toddlers. It’s already a national bestseller and part of a growing “Books by Ms. Rachel” line that also includes titles like Potty Time with Bean and activity books.


Plenty of TV characters end up slapped on a picture book; this is different. The Ms. Rachel brand was built from the beginning on early childhood research rather than on merchandise.


Her videos and books intentionally mirror techniques used by speech-language pathologists and early-intervention specialists: exaggerated mouth movements, slowed speech, repetition, modeling, and lots of opportunities for the child to “answer” or practice.


Importantly, her own website and publisher materials emphasize that her content is not a replacement for speech therapy and that the best learning still happens in live, back-and-forth interaction with caregivers. That’s the quiet power of her books: they bring the caregiver back to the center. A board book is not autoplay. It lives in a lap, in a waiting room, in the back of the car - wherever a grown-up and child sit close enough to point, label, and laugh together.


In that sense, her author work is more old-fashioned than her streaming empire: a return to the simplest form of early childhood education - shared stories, one page at a time.

Part of what makes Miss Rachel “more than meets the eye” is how much of her own humanity she’s chosen to share.


She has spoken publicly about experiencing a miscarriage before the birth of her son, calling him her “rainbow baby” and using her platform to extend tenderness to other parents who have endured pregnancy loss.


She has also been candid about needing to step back from social media “for my mental health” when online criticism and trolling became overwhelming, particularly during backlash aimed at her nonbinary co-star, Jules, who uses they/them pronouns. That openness about boundaries and well being sits in stark contrast to the relentless “always on” energy of much children’s media.


In interviews and posts, she has named her own anxiety and OCD, framing mental health not as a shameful secret but as part of being a whole person who can still offer a lot of love and stability to children. For parents who struggle silently with those same issues, that honesty can be as impactful as any alphabet song.


Then there is the courage - depending on your point of view, the risk - of using a young-child brand to embody inclusive values.


Her show features a visibly queer, nonbinary performer (Jules), and when some parents criticized the presence of they/them pronouns in content aimed at little kids, Ms. Rachel and her team quietly stood by their colleague.


More recently, she has used her platform to draw attention to children in war zones, particularly Palestinian children injured or displaced in Gaza. A video of her singing with Rahaf, a 3-year-old amputee, drew intense praise from some and harsh criticism from others who perceived bias in her focus. Throughout, she has tried to center a simple principle:


All children deserve safety and compassion, no matter where they are born.


You can feel those values in her books if you look closely. The characters and families are quietly diverse. The tone is gentle but firm about feelings, empathy, and repair. The message is not just “say this word” but “you are loved, you are capable, and your voice matters.”


That’s not neutral content. It’s a moral stance gently woven into board books and picture books.


Another piece you don’t see in a quick flip through a bookstore is how collaborative the Ms. Rachel universe is.


Her husband, Aron Accurso, is a seasoned Broadway composer and music director who left full-time theater work to co-create her educational content. He writes and arranges music, performs, puppeteers, and helps shape the structure of both the videos and the books. Ms. Rachel herself has said, “There’s no Ms. Rachel without Mr. Aron.”


What started as a small, family-run YouTube channel is now a full multimedia ecosystem:


  • A massively popular YouTube series and TikTok presence.


  • A hit Netflix show bringing her lessons to a global streaming audience.


  • A growing toy line and learning products developed with major partners.


  • and, increasingly, books and board books that extend her pedagogy beyond the screen.


It’s easy to be cynical about brands aimed at toddlers; skepticism about commercialization is healthy. But in this case, the order of operations matters: this wasn’t a toy company searching for a spokeswoman. It was an educator whose work resonated so deeply with families that publishers and partners came to her.


So why does any of this matter when you’re standing in the children’s section trying to choose between yet another animal alphabet and a glittery unicorn story?


Because the name on the spine now carries real, earned meaning.


A Miss Rachel book isn’t just a screen tie-in. It’s:


  • Grounded in child development research and speech-support strategies, not just entertainment value.


  • Designed to be used with, not instead of, a caregiver, encouraging eye contact, turn-taking, and shared joy.


  • Shaped by lived experience - a parent who has navigated speech delay, miscarriage, anxiety, and online scrutiny, and still chooses gentleness as her default tone.


  • Intentionally inclusive, modeling a world where many kinds of families, identities, and children belong.


There is more to this author than meets the eye: a serious educator inside the viral thumbnail, a grieving parent inside the cheerful songs, an advocate for children’s rights inside the soft-spoken story time voice.


The next time you see Miss Rachel or Ms. Rachel on a book cover, it’s worth pausing.


You’re not just picking up a branded tie-in; you’re holding a small piece of a much larger project designed to help the youngest children find their words, their feelings, and their place in a complicated world.


Further Reading


 

Ms. Rachel and Her Husband’s Meet-Cute Is So On-Brand. https://www.glamour.com/story/ms-rachel-husband-meet-cute

 

Ms. Rachel Reveals She Experienced a Miscarriage Before Welcoming Her Son: 'Always Be My Rainbow Baby.' https://people.com/ms-rachel-shares-she-experienced-a-miscarriage-before-welcoming-son-8709012

 

Who Is Ms. Rachel's Husband? All About Aron Accurso. https://people.com/who-is-aron-accurso-ms-rachel-husband-8681443

 

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