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Changemaker and fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad breaks barriers. She was the first Muslim American woman in hijab to compete for the United States in the Olympics. She was the first Muslim American woman to earn a medal in the games, scoring bronze in the women’s saber team event. She inspired the first Barbie in hijab, a [ Read the full article… ]
One of the highlights of the many highlights Kwame Mbalia has received is definitely the Coretta Scott King Honor Award for TRISTAN STRONG PUNCHES A HOLE IN THE SKY. Kwame said, “It rattled me to my core. I never dreamed that my book would resonate with readers like it did, and I’m incredibly grateful, thankful, and [ Read the full article… ]
In 1963, Sharon Langley became the first Black child to legally ride the carousel in Baltimore’s Gwynn Oak Amusement Park after it was finally desegregated. Langley shares both the historical and personal circumstances leading up to this momentous act in the lovely and well-reviewed picture book, A Ride to Remember, co-authored by Amy Nathan, illustrated [ Read the full article… ]
Tonya Engel is a self-taught artist living in Houston, Texas. Folk artists of the deep South have influenced her work, as well as contemporary masters such as Marc Chagall, Frida Kahlo, Romare Beardon and Gustav Klimpt. Her bold style is figurative, textured, colorful, and ripe with symbolism. Engel made a spectacular debut in children’s publishing [ Read the full article… ]
YA fiction featuring Black characters is having a moment, especially on the Science Fiction and Fantasy side. But not only those genres. Realistic contemporary is right alongside them offering reflections of Black teenagers that even a few years ago, we weren’t seeing regularly. Now, I’ll admit, since I’m raising a little bunhead of my own, [ Read the full article… ]
Kyandreia Jones is a Posse Miami Scholar and a Creative Writing major at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. She was born and raised in South Florida. When she thinks of home she likes to muse that she is in a “sunshine state of mind.” Jones’ poetry and prose has been published in various college [ Read the full article… ]
Malaika Adero, author of A Black Woman Did That, experienced her first “Black girl magic” moment when she was in high school and received a silver pendant in recognition of her creative writing work on the school’s literary magazine. Fifteen years later, she received the publishing industry’s Tony Godwin Award given to an editor of [ Read the full article… ]
