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… ]
Category: General
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… ]
Celebrating Diversity at ALA: Recommended Titles
Our sincere thanks to all of the ALA participants who joined The Brown Bookshelf in paying tribute to our favorite children’s books created for and by African Americans (and those of the African diaspora). Below are the links to the book lists we promised: BBS Nonfiction BBS Fiction BBS “Celebrating Diversity” Book Recommendations Thanks again for all you do to [ 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… ]
The Brown Bookshelf at ALA
We’re taking our show on the road. Several of us will be at ALA for panels, programs and signings. We’d love to see you. Please join us if you’re free and spread the word. Here’s a schedule of our events: Friday, June 24 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. – Writer’s Block/Winter Park Public Library (Don Tate and [ Read the full article… ]
Expanding Our Family: New BBS Members
We’re thrilled to share that our family has grown. Please join us in welcoming two stand-outs in the kidlit world to our Brown Bookshelf team – author and editor Tracey Baptiste and author/illustrator Jerry Craft. Tracey announced a new book deal last month. She’s writing a sequel to her award-winning novel The Jumbies. Yesterday, Jerry was [ Read the full article… ]
“We’re the People” releases 2016 Summer Reading List
We’re the People, a collaboration of authors, bloggers, academics, and librarians who share a passion for children, literacy, and diversity, has released their 2016 Summer Reading List! The focus of the list are books that are written or illustrated by Native Americans or writers/illustrators of color that have withstood a critical review. You can find the full annotated [ Read the full article… ]
Guest post: Nadia Hohn’s selfie interview on “Malaika’s Costume”
When author/illustrator Don Tate invited me to write a blogpost about Malaika’s Costume, I thought. Of course. Why not? Why don’t I take this opportunity to ask all of the questions, the sorts of questions I get asked all the time, the sorts of questions I wished I was asked about this book? Ladies and gentleman. [ Read the full article… ]