Deborah Gregory's Cheetah series provides a plot twist for kids' books; author takes pains to make characters culturally diverse

By Linda Jones


Deborah Gregory was minding her own business as a writer for Essence magazine when editors of Disney Publishing approached her last year to help them with a book project.

They wanted Gregory to build a story around five teen-agers who form a singing group, and they wanted the group to have a multicultural flavor.

Drawing from her life experiences and her idiosyncrasies _ such as an affinity for fashion with a wild-animal flair _ Gregory created "The Cheetah Girls." Her characters are five hip New York City divas-in-training who wear cheetah and leopard prints and are set on becoming stars.

Gregory's first few novels about the Cheetah Girls were so well-received that there are plans to make the storybook characters part of a television series. The books, geared to children ages 8-12, are published bimonthly by Jump At The Sun, Disney Publishing Worldwide/Hyperion Books for Children. The books are $3.99 each.

The Disney Channel and singer Whitney Houston's Brownhouse Productions will co-produce the novel series, and the producers are planning a nationwide search for five young women to play the characters created by Gregory.

"I certainly didn't dream that this would happen," she says from her home in New York.

Not a bad deal for a woman who was once a homeless toddler and spent her adolescent years in several foster homes before moving on up to be a fashion model in Europe and, ultimately, an award-winning journalist.

Gregory went into overdrive to make sure that the characters in her novels are racially and culturally diverse and that some of their problems reflect real life.

"They told me they wanted them to be black, but that's not my reality," says Gregory, who is of mixed racial heritage but identifies herself as being African-American.

"To me it was very important that (the characters) be multicultural because that is the reality of the world." The Cheetah Girls are a mixed bunch. Galleria is black and Italian; Chanel is of Dominican, Puerto Rican and Cuban heritage; Anginette and Aquanette are middle-class, southern African-American twins originally from Houston; and Dorinda is a foster child who knows of her black background but later discovers the rest of her heritage.

"The Dorinda character is most like me," says Gregory, who was raised in the New York City foster-care system.

Gregory was 3 and living on the streets of Brooklyn with her mother and three of her five siblings. "The police picked us up. My mother was institutionalized, and we were placed into the foster-care system. We were all separated," she says.

Gregory left the system when she was 18 after living in four foster homes and one group home and worked her way through school. She graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology and spent a year in Europe as a fashion model. She returned to New York and earned a degree in English literature and writing at Empire State College in 1986.

She tried for a few years to locate her mother but never did.

"I gave up," she says. "But I did find a picture of her. I made copies and sent them to my sisters."

She worked through the unpleasantness of her past as a foster child, through her writing and public service. She is a member of the National Association of Former Foster Children and has been recognized by the New York City Human Resources Administration for her work with children. She also received an award from the New York Association of Black Journalists for writing about the foster-care system.

In 1991, Gregory became a contributing writer at Essence, the leading monthly magazine for African-American women, after meeting the fashion editor while running a boutique in SoHo. The editor frequented Gregory's boutique to borrow some of her designs to use in photo shoots. After her business partnership failed and her boutique closed, Gregory "harassed" the fashion editor to let her write for Essence.

After a successful tryout, she began working as a free-lance writer. She currently writes a monthly gossip column for Essence. She also writes a column for More magazine. Many of the entertainment stories Gregory has written have been about young female singing groups. She says she is a frustrated singer herself.

"When I was younger, I wanted to sing. I had all the clothes, I had the flamboyant quality, but I just didn't have the voice," she says.

The Cheetah Girls series, she says, helps address the void that exists for young women of color seeking books about people to whom they can relate.

"I felt obligated to create something that I wanted to read when I was little," she says.

She says editors at Jump At The Sun, which specializes in books about African-American culture, approached her to do the book after they saw her being interviewed on "Oprah" last year.

Gregory keeps her Cheetah Girls hip by endowing them with a wacky vocabulary she either makes up or draws from the mouths of real-life teens. Her characters dream of collecting "duckets" (money) in the "jiggy jungle" (place where you can make your dreams come true).

The Cheetah Girls are destined to be role models for girls who also want to reach for the stars, says Gregory. But she doesn't want her books to be preachy.

She says her approach is light.

"We want to be silly," she says with no apologies. "The Cheetah Girls don't litter, they glitter. Sil-li-ness."

Throughout the novels, she keeps the characters wholesome without making them square.

"Yeah, there is a set of ethics or codes they're supposed to follow, but I don't like to beat people over the head with things like that. In time, it will seep in."