Kadir Nelson is a Los Angeles-based award-winning author and illustrator. Plus, he is an incredibly talented painter, best known for his paintings that got featured on the album covers of Michael Jackson and Drake and on the front cover of The New Yorker magazine. Nelson authored and illustrated more than 30 picture books, where his […]
Julius Bernard Lester was a versatile character. Besides being a renowned American author who wrote children’s and adults’ books, he worked as an academic professional (teacher) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for more than three decades. Moreover, Lester was also a civil rights activist, a photographer, and a musician. He recorded two albums of […]
Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, Angela Johnson is an award-winning American children’s picture books and adult novels author with over 40 books to her credit. Her simple yet poetic content for children talks about African-American history, friendships, and childhood experiences, such as immigrating early. On the other hand, her books for older children (teens and adults) […]
Renee Watson is an award-winning African-American author, poet, educator, and community activist from Portland, Oregon. She is best known for her young adult novels, which explore race, identity, and family issues. Watson grew up in a creative household where she was encouraged to express herself through art and writing https://youtu.be/EO8HPaSs5oM Early Life Watson was born […]
Charles R. Smith Jr. is multi-talented. He loves playing basketball and staying fit and is an award-winning author, photographer, and poet with over thirty books. Not just that, he is also an illustrator and illustrated the book, If. Plus, He authored and photographed for his own book, I Am The World. You would often see him giving […]
Born and raised in Baltimore, Carole Boston Weatherford is an African-American author and critic. She writes children’s literature and historical books, as well as poetry and commentaries. Her books talk about African American history, families and traditions, and jazz. To date, she has written more than 40 books and bagged many awards and medals for […]
Ntozake Shange (1948- 2018) was an African-American poet, novelist, and playwright famous for her activism work and her play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf.” Born in 1948 as Paulette L. Williams to an upper-middle class family, Shange lived a comfortable life. However, that change at the age […]
Toni Morrison (Feb.18,1931- Aug 5, 2019) was widely regarded as a premiere American writer of the modern era. In 1931, Morrison was born to a welder father and domestic worker mother. Both instilled in her the importance of education and the arts. She and her family lived in a mixed neighborhood, and not until high […]
Born in 1963, Jacqueline Woodson is a multiple award-winning children books and adolescent fiction books’ author. She is well-known for depicting detailed physical aspects in each of her books. Her story writing technique involves placing physical and psychological boundaries around her characters, boundaries of all sorts: cultural, economic, physical, sensual, and racial boundaries. Her characters […]
Jason Reynolds is an American author who writes novels and poetry for young adults and middle-grade children. Born in Washington DC in 1983, Reynolds grew up with his three siblings, just across the Maryland border in Oxon Hill. Her mother was a special education teacher and worked hard enough to bring up four of her […]
