Sometimes it’s fun to find out things about an author or illustrator that has nothing to do with their craft. For instance, YA author, Angie Thomas, likes playing video games, driving anywhere and nowhere at all, cooking/baking, and Air Jordan collecting. Her favorite foods are baked macaroni and cheese and cheesecake. She was a teenage [ Read the full article… ]
What is a purveyor of awesomeness? If you saw one walking down the street would you know? Let me help you out. Just look at the picture to the left. When you write novels about butt-kicking females with a Greek mythology backdrop, you can put “Purveyor of Awesomeness” on your website next to your [ 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… ]
Fortunately, we receive books! The following are upcoming or recently published books written by African American authors, or authors of any background, but feature diverse main characters. If Kids Ran the World by Leo & Diane Dillon Scholastic, Blue Sky Press, 2014 From the publisher: Two-time Caldecott Medalists Leo and Diane Dillon show children playfully creating [ Read the full article… ]
For our series, MAKING OUR OWN MARKET, Kirsten Cappy of Curious City, a book consulting company, tackles the subject of marketing books created by or about African Americans. Taking Book Marketing Off the Page, Out of the Park by Kirsten Cappy of Curious City For me, children’s book marketing on the Brown Bookshelf or off has [ Read the full article… ]
Diane Browne has written over 40 stories/books. She has been published by Ginn in the United Kingdom; Harcourt Brace and Friendship Press in the USA; Heinemann Caribbean, Carlong Publishers, Arawak Publications, and the Ministry of Education in Jamaica. She has been a visiting author for the Students’ Encounter Programme at the Miami Book Fair, and [ Read the full article… ]
Not many people can say they learned from a literary star. But children’s book author Linda Trice received that honor twice. Sterling Brown, considered the Dean of Black poetry, and John Oliver Killens, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated novelist, were both her mentors. Their lessons about celebrating the beauty of black people and writing with love shines through in her [ Read the full article… ]
If you are at all familiar with the picture book genre, you’ve likely heard of Uncle Jed’s Barbershop, the much heralded, 1994 Coretta Scott King Honor Book. Margaree King Mitchell is the author of that still-popular title, as well as Granddaddy’s Gift (1996). Her latest book, When Grandmama Sings, was released last month to wonderful [ Read the full article… ]