What a month it’s been.
What started out as a simple exercise in shelf awareness has grown into a full-fledged mission to bring authors and readers of all backgrounds, ethnicities and races together to celebrate books, the authors who write them and the illustrators who make them beautiful.
The support from visitors to our site, influencers in the literary community, the authors who graced us with their presence via Q&A’s and their publishers was tremendous. We hoped, but never imagined that The Brown Bookshelf would be embraced so.
Thank you for visiting us. We hope that you’ll continue to stop by and read our reflections on the children’s lit industry and discover more great authors.
Now, on to the good stuff.
Book Winners
Grand Prize Winner: Gift Basket
Lesha*
*Will designate a library to receive a basket containing books by the 2008 28 Days Later spotlight authors and illustrators.
Individual Book Winners
The Chicken Chasing Queen of Lamar County – Diannewrites
Mama’s Window – Sheila K.M.
Chess Rumble – Sabra R.
Jazz Baby – Christal
When Horses Ride By – Hannah
Juneteenth Jamboree – WendieO
How Smart We Are – blbooks
Sweet Land of Liberty – Erin
I Dream for You A World – Ramasay
Tyrell – Joyce H. & Liz B.
Nikki & Deja – Wits & Lesha
Brendan Buckley’s Universe and Everything in It – Stephanie I.
Dance Jam Productions – Katia
Elijah of Buxton – Carole Mcd.
Played – Curtis F.
The Shadow Speaker – Hershey Brown
Next for The Brown Bookshelf
28 & Beyond
While the BBS wholly supports Black History Month and felt it was the best time to bring attention to under-the-radar authors – we don’t want readers thinking they can forget about authors of color until next year. Plus, it would be a shame to not share some of the great candidates submitted for the 28 Days campaign, who didn’t make our final cut.
So tune into our site for the 28 & Beyond blog feature, where we’ll discuss books by some of the authors who made our Top 12.
Summer Chat Series
We’re gearing up a forum on Myspace to conduct a series of chats. Summertime is good reading time and since the publishing industry slows down a bit, also the perfect time to talk books, writing and book publishing.
Every Wednesday, June through August, BBS members will host a chat. We’re lining up guests now. Look for chats for young readers, aspiring writers, current authors and influencers.
Examples of the chats we’re putting together include:
*Indies & The Author: Looking at opportunities for indie bookstores and authors to work together in innovative ways.
*Temperature Check: Chat with agents to talk about what’s going on in the kiddie lit industry
*Hype, Hype Hooray: Chat with teen readers to find out what really makes them pick up a book
Great job Kelly, Paula, Carla, Varian, and everyone who submitted names and participated in this campaign. It’s been such fun and an honor to put this all together with you all. Now, I’m taking a badly needed nap.
Cheers!
It has definitely been a privileged pleasure to be a part of The Brown Bookshelf and be introduced to some talented writers whose books are on either on my Read or To Be Read piles.
Thank you to everyone for supporting The Brown Bookshelf since we launched in November. I assure you, we’re only going to get better!
Thank you for this event! It was an honor and a pleasure to be part of such a wide-reaching group of writers and artists. Thank you for taking such care and consideration in highlighting African American children’s books. Here’s to the future!
It’s been a pleasure. But after 28 straight days of this, all I can say now is Zzzzz….
🙂
Thanks so much to all of you — 28 Days Later was fantastic, and I’m looking forward to all that is to come!