Author: Kelly Starling Lyons

On April 18, the Langston Hughes Library of the Children’s Defense Fund Haley Farm in Clinton, TN will host an important event. Walter Dean Myers, award-winning YA and children’s book author, will give the 2009 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture. Here are more details from the press release: Each year, the Arbuthnot Lecture features an [ Read the full article… ]

I first met Vanesse J. Lloyd-Sgambati at BookExpo America. She congratulated me on the debut of One Million Men and Me and said she’d be in touch about having me sign at her book fair, The African American Children’s Book Fair in Philadelphia. I was thrilled, but had no idea about the event’s important history and what it would [ Read the full article… ]

We hear a lot about the need to get more boys reading. According to a 2000 study cited by the National Center for Education Statistics, boys lagged behind girls in reading performance across all age groups. Experts say the reading gap for African-American and Latino young men is even more pronounced. There are lots of factors that contribute [ Read the full article… ]

  One reason why I love children’s books is their power to move, affirm, delight and inspire. It amazes me the scope of emotions and topics they cover. When I needed help explaining to my daughter what voting and election day were all about, they were there. I turned to books like If I Ran for President by Catherine Stier [ Read the full article… ]

Dr. Jonda McNair, assistant professor of reading education at Clemson University,  is the creator of an innovative program that celebrates African-American children’s literature. Her family literacy project, I Never Knew There Were So Many Books About Us: Parents and Children Reading African-American Children’s Literature Together, used monthly workshops to model for parents engaging read-aloud techniques and teach children ways to respond to books [ Read the full article… ]

Two decades ago, Wade and Cheryl Hudson searched for quality African-American children’s books to share with their kids. Frustrated by the lack of options, they made a bold decision: They would fill the gap themselves. Their simple desire to give their children books that reflected their images and voices launched a 20-year legacy. Founded on the principle [ Read the full article… ]

Children’s librarian and author Vaunda Micheaux Nelson was exploring an exhibit of historic rag dolls at New Mexico’s International Museum of Folk Art when inspiration struck. As she perused the collection, which included a few dolls from Underground Railroad hideouts, she is quoted as thinking: “If only these dolls could talk.” So began Nelson’s journey [ Read the full article… ]

Inspired by the author’s childhood, this tale of a girl longing for a book to call her own warms hearts with its vivid language and beautiful acrylic portraits. In The Hard-Times Jar (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003), written by Ethel Footman Smothers and illustrated by John Holyfield, Emma, the daughter of migrant farm workers, makes up stories and records them on brown paper-bag pages. [ Read the full article… ]