28 Days Year: 2008

There’s probably not a children’s author out there who hasn’t had to answer the question, “So what’s it like writing for children? How do you do it?” I always have an answer, but it’s something that’s much easier answered by simply picking up a children’s book and reading it. Once you do, you realize that [ Read the full article… ]

Derrick Barnes is no stranger to the Brown Bookshelf community.  Last year, we did a spotlight on his book The Making of Dr. Truelove as well as announced the debut of the Ruby and the Booker Boys series.  In case it is not clear, the future is bright for author Derrick Barnes.  Full of optimism, [ Read the full article… ]

Tanita S. Davis is an oddity in the world of children’s and young adult authors – she’s one of the few authors that actually set out to write YA fiction. School Library Journal calls her first novel for young adults, A La Carte (Knopf, 2008) a book “with a lot of heart,” and Kirkus says [ Read the full article… ]

Floyd Cooper defies The Brown Bookshelf’s mission of highlighting children’s literature creators whose works may be flying under the radar of teachers and librarians. His name isn’t flying under anything. In fact, he’s probably one of the best known, most celebrated, and highly regarded artists in the industry. He has won the Coretta Scott King [ Read the full article… ]

Pat Cummings’ first drawings, she admits, were more like scribbles than anything resembling art. She would spend entire afternoons coloring them, and then her mother would try to guess what they were. A dinosaur? A duck? Or maybe even her Daddy? Although no one could figure them out, that didn’t stop her mother from bragging [ Read the full article… ]

In elementary school, Angela Johnson had a special teacher who could create worlds with words. She would read stories after lunch and make characters spring up around Johnson: “Book people came to life,” Johnson shared in one interview. “They sat beside me in Maple Grove School. That is when I knew.” Johnson wanted to be a writer. More than 40 books later, Johnson is not only [ Read the full article… ]

As a child, Zetta Elliott felt the sting caused by racial slights and slurs. She endured the pain of divorce and the devastation of family breakup. As any child would feel given these situations, Zetta often felt invisible, overlooked — seen yet not heard. Her writing, like the works of many authors, reflect her personal [ Read the full article… ]

When Little Divas hit bookshelves in 2006 it could have been called Lonely Divas because there simply weren’t many middle grade novels, of its kind, aimed at African American readers – a refrain repeated often here at The Brown Bookshelf when we spotlight those authors working hard to fill the slowly shrinking but still present [ Read the full article… ]