Twenty-five years ago, Vanesse Lloyd-Sgambati created the African American Children’s Book Fair in Philadelphia to spread the joy of reading and get books by black children’s book creators into kids’ hands. At that first event on a frosty day, 250 people attended. Today, more than 3,000 line up to buy books and meet black authors and [ Read the full article… ]
Author: Kelly Starling Lyons
Carla Sarratt: Looking Back, Looking Forward
In honor of our 10th anniversary, we are proud to share this reflection by Carla Sarratt, one of our founding members. Carla, an invaluable member of our team, worked diligently to help The Brown Bookshelf connect with teachers, librarians and kids. Today, she has a special view of two sides of the publishing world – children’s book creator and [ Read the full article… ]
A Declaration in Support of Children
Children’s literature may be the most influential literary genre of all. Picture books, chapter books, middle-grade and young-adult novels all serve the most noble of purposes: to satisfy the need for information, to entertain curious imaginations, to encourage critical thinking skills, to move and inspire. Within their pages, seeds of wisdom and possibility are sown. [ Read the full article… ]
What do we tell the children?
On election night, CNN commentator Van Jones shared what many parents around the nation were feeling. “. . You tell your kids, ‘Don’t be a bully.’ You tell your kids, ‘Don’t be a bigot.’ You tell your kids, ‘Do your homework and be prepared.’ And then you have this outcome. And you have people putting children to [ Read the full article… ]
Countdown to our Tenth Campaign
Happy Halloween! At The Brown Bookshelf, we have another reason to feel festive. February will kick off the 10th campaign of 28 Days Later, our annual Black History Month celebration of under-the-radar and vanguard black children’s book creators. To mark that milestone, we’re starting throwback Thursdays this week where we share a profile from our archive of [ Read the full article… ]
You Can Fly: Guest Post by Jeffery Weatherford
You Can Fly: The Tuskegee Airmen follows the training, trials and triumphs of the U.S. military’s first African American pilots. Set during World War II, the book pairs my scratchboard illustrations with poems by my mother, award-winning author Carole Boston Weatherford. The title is our first collaboration and my publication debut. This year marks the [ Read the full article… ]
Preserving Langston’s Legacy
It’s always a pleasure to feature award-winning author Renée Watson. Her powerful books include This Side of Home, Harlem’s Little Blackbird, A Place Where Hurricanes Happen, What Momma Left Me and the forthcoming Piecing Me Together. Today, we’re honored to share another side of her – visionary and advocate. Renée’s dream is to lease and renovate [ Read the full article… ]
Call for Submissions
A Brown Bookshelf reader let me know that there are two Plum Street publishing companies – Plum Street Press, based in New Orleans, and Plum Street Publishers, based in Arkansas, which issued the call for submissions. So sorry for the mix-up. Lucky for us, both are open to new work: Here’s what I wrote about Plum [ Read the full article… ]