About Us

The Buck

Family

We are a multiracial family based in Medford, Massachusetts. Our family has a common love for books; it’s what reliably settles our kiddos when the world around us gets chaotic.

Arya loves to help deliver these books to little ones each month, going on trips with Daddy around the local Boston area. Kiran is a little too small to be coordinated enough to stuff envelopes, but he enjoys devouring the books we pick and has a big affinity for Dora the Explorer, besides.

Photo by Dyuti Majumdar, Art and Memories Studio

Simanta Buck

President and Co-Founder

Growing up one of the only kids of Indian-American descent in her hometown, Simanta (Simmy) didn’t have access to textbooks that told a fair story about people of color, and she didn’t remember having access to books that told multidimensional stories about them, either. She found that the limited access she and her surrounding community had to diverse perspectives had ripples effects—in how she was treated in the classroom and in how she often tried to blend in rather than embrace her own differences. 

Loving Little Minds aims to bring multicultural children’s books to homes that opt in to do so on a monthly basis so everybody can see themselves—and others unlike them—fully and fairly represented in the pages of a book.

Simmy works in scientific publishing by day and has always enjoyed telling and writing stories.

Brian Buck

Vice-President and Co-Founder

Brian Buck is an educator at Arlington Public Schools. Growing up, he learned about BIPOC figures and voices often categorized as “the other”—a group of outsiders who were often portrayed as angry, fed up, and looking for some type of change. Back then, he found his community only took the briefest glances at these voices, never stopping to examine them and make deep, empathetic, human connections. As an educator, it is his desire for all of his students to engage in the experiences of diversity.

When he began teaching, he knew he needed to expand his resources. The need was simple: the faces in his classroom simply did not match the faces in his books. The philosophy that shaped his resources and curriculum eventually led to the ideas that helped to inspire Loving Little Minds: that everyone deserves to be a main character, that all groups benefit when we diversify our learning experiences, that BIPOC voices are American voices, and that Black lives matter.

Marina Nasman, Treasurer

Marina Nasman’s earliest and happiest memories involve piles of books. When she moved to the U.S. at age seven, Marina learned English by reading books from her local library.  These books also provided a window into the lives of American families, helping her understand her new friends and neighbors.  From there, her love of books helped her to explore new worlds, real and imagined.  

Marina went on to receive B.A. in Psychology and an M.B.A from Harvard University.  She lives and works in New York City, where she can still be found with her nose in a book.

Marina is very proud of her friends Simanta and Brian Buck for starting Loving Little Minds Home Library.  LLM’s mission is not only to inspire a love of reading in our youngest generation, but to provide them a portal around the globe to explore the experiences, joys, and fears of different cultures, races, and ethnicities.  Marina cannot think of a better way to change the world than to expand the minds of those who will one day run it.

Juliana Waltz, Secretary

Juliana Waltz is an avid reader who has loved books since she was little.  Her first favorite stories were Goodnight Moon, Harriet Reads Signs and More Signs, and A Chair For My Mother. She now likes to read and listen to books about history and culture, as well as novels that have many adventures.

Juliana is thrilled to be a part of Loving Little Minds Home Library Project because she believes that the world is at its best when everybody can be seen, heard, and understood. America’s literary canon has uplifted white and Euro-centric voices for centuries, which misrepresents our full story.  She believes that to correct this mistake, there’s no better audience than children, who may carry their favorite childhood stories with them all their lives.

Juliana studied at Boston University and the Harvard Extension School.  She now lives and reads books in Hudson, New York, with her husband and her dog.