Today, we are proud to announce the honorees for our eighth annual 28 Days Later campaign, a Black History Month celebration of emerging and established children’s book creators of color. Each day during February, we will showcase an outstanding author or illustrator. We invite you to come along on our journey and spread the news [ Read the full article… ]

Guest post by Irene Smalls This Black History Month, let’s support reading achievement, fitness and health. Background: According to the CDC, during the years between 2007 and 2010, 51% of Black and 41% of Hispanic children were informed by doctors that they were overweight. The State of Obesity Report 9/14, shows that of children ages 6-11, 23.8% [ Read the full article… ]

Habari Gani? Kujichagulia (Self-Determination)! “To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.” We celebrate this Kwanzaa principle today with a post by Justin Scott Parr, author of the Sage Carrington middle-grade series. Inspired by his little cousin’s curiosity about his travels to Africa and Latin America, Justin created his first novel, Sage Carrington: Eighth-Grade Science Sleuth [ Read the full article… ]

  I bet “a new bike” is on plenty of Dear Santa letters. Whether Santa agrees or not, every child should have a copy of New Red Bike. It’s a deceptively simple story of friendship—an even greater gift. Join James in his studio to understand how it evolved. Listen. Isn’t that Get the Funk blasting [ Read the full article… ]

In the middle ages, Gutenberg invented the printing press not far from where the Frankfurt Book Fair opens every year to about 7,300 exhibitors from more than 100 countries, around 275,000 visitors, more than 3,700 events, 9,000 journalists and over 1,000 bloggers. In October, Irene Smalls was one of those exhibitors. Irene is a multi-publshed [ Read the full article… ]

We Need Diverse Books™ (WNDB)  is a grassroots organization created to address the lack of diverse, non-majority narratives in children’s literature. They are committed to the ideal that embracing diversity will lead to acceptance, empathy, and ultimately equality. Being that WNDB shares many of the goals we’ve set here at the Brown Bookshelf, I want to encourage you [ Read the full article… ]

©2014 By Eleanora E. Tate After Dial Press published my first book, Just an Overnight Guest, in 1980, I naively assumed that it would be in print forever. After all, Phoenix Films adapted it into a television film in 1983 and it aired on Nickelodeon and PBS’s Wonderworks all over the country. I don’t remember [ Read the full article… ]

By Alice Faye Duncan As summer came to a close, there was so much death and sadness around us. The sketchy details of Michael Brown’s murder plagued the news. Actress and activist, Ruby Dee died. Maya Angelou passed away at the top of the summer. And while writing this note, I just received word that [ Read the full article… ]