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“Don’t give yourself an option to fail.”* Chrystal Giles Born, raised and still living in North Carolina Chrystal Giles has come full circle with children’s literacy. Even as a child, she always had a love for books. Roaming up and down the aisles at the library, coming home with a tall stack of books, and [ Read the full article… ]
For book lovers looking for their next impossible-to- put down young adult novel, visit your neighborhood bookstore or library and check out The STARS AND THE BLACKNESS BETWEEN THEM. Junauda Petrus is the author and writes from her home in Minneapolis. Her book has won the Minnesota Book Award, a Coretta Scott King Honor, ALA [ Read the full article… ]
I’m a very visual person. Oftentimes, I purchase picture books because of the art, without really knowing the author’s or illustrator’s name. That caused me some embarrassment a few years ago at the Original Art show in NYC, a Society of Illustrators event. While checking out the art on the walls, an artist walked up [ Read the full article… ]
Today’s Brown Bookshelf honoree is a director, human rights activist, and thespian, as well as a novelist. Kimberly L. Jones began using words to enact change when she was just six years old. While in DC with her mom, Kimberly was hanging out in the lobby with her older sister Angie, and a news crew [ Read the full article… ]
Chatting with the delightful Marie Arnold was like settling in for tea with a longtime friend. And as a writer for children (as well as teens and adults), Arnold writes from a place of care and empathy. In her debut middle grade novel, THE YEAR I FLEW AWAY, “I really wanted to go against that [ Read the full article… ]
James Berry, OBE, was a renowned Jamaican poet. Born in 1924, he grew up on a farm in Portland Parish, located on the northeast coast of the island. Berry settled in London, England during the 1940s and was an early member of the Caribbean Artists Movement. He was particularly known for weaving Jamaican Patois throughout [ Read the full article… ]
“A good imagination can save your life and heal your soul.” – Joy Jones. There are many things you can talk about with Joy Jones. After all, she’s an inspirational speaker, an author, poet, trainer, and founder of D.C. Retro Jumpers, an all-aged Double-Dutch group. Double Dutch? That’s right, as in the picture below. The [ Read the full article… ]
Archivist. Librarian. Historian. With the publication of her debut novel, Escape from . . . Hurricane Katrina, Judy Allen Dodson added another title to her impressive list of credentials – children’s book author. In a powerful story of courage, determination, resilience and family bonds, Allen Dodson gives us twin heroes who weather a devastating storm [ Read the full article… ]