About a year and a half ago, Laura Henderson, a toy company executive and 38-year-old mother in Toronto, was at the tail end of maternity leave with her second child. She was bleary-eyed and overwhelmed, as mothers juggling an infant and toddler tend to be, when she started scrolling TikTok and stumbled upon the children’s personality known as Ms. Rachel.
That name probably means nothing to you — unless you regularly spend time with a child under the age of 3, in which case you’re likely aware that she is essentially Taylor Swift for toddlers. Ms. Rachel is the star of a mega-viral YouTube channel created with her husband (known to viewers as “Mr. Aron”) who makes educational musical videos for the baby and toddler set, complete with bursts of animation and Broadway-worthy show tunes.
In the videos, dozens of which each top 100 million views, Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Accurso, cheerfully speaks to young viewers while wearing a signature outfit of denim overalls, a pink T-shirt and a knotted pink headband. Little ones go wild for her version of “Hop Little Bunnies” and for characters like a fluffy orange puppet named Herbie, voiced by her husband, Aron Accurso. She does a lot of peekaboo and dramatic wondering of “what’s in” boxes: “What’s in the box? What could it be? Will you take a look inside the box with me?”
