I own a well-read copy of Virginia Hamilton’s The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales. It’s a classic in many households, as it should be. It’s not just the stories that I return to over and over again; it’s the magical illustrations by the dynamic duo Leo and Diane Dillon....
Talks with Roger is a sponsored supplement to our free monthly e-newsletter, Notes from the Horn Book. To receive Notes, sign up here. Sponsored by Author of the 2018 Boston Globe–Horn Book Nonfiction Honor book The 57 Bus, journalist Dashka Slater returns in Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and...
I’ve always said that my wish for diverse books in the future, especially for LGBTQIA+ books — and even more so for QTBIPOC books — is that there will be so many of them that people can walk into a bookstore looking for the most specific niche and still be...
My hope for the future of diverse children’s literature is that one day, the segregating qualifiers will fall away for good. When my daughter was eight, I remember the two of us combing the library stacks, searching for an appropriate middle-grade book. At some point, a sympathetic librarian asked if...
Talks with Roger is a sponsored supplement to our free monthly e-newsletter, Notes from the Horn Book. To receive Notes, sign up here. Sponsored by Astra Books for Young Readers In Papá’s Magical Water-Jug Clock, standup comedian–turned–picture book author Jesús Trejo and animator-turned-illustrator Eliza Kinkz bring a funny but heartfelt story from Jesús’s childhood...
In January 2022, when We Need Diverse Books’s Walter Awards Judging Committee informed me that Red, White, and Whole had won the Walter Award for younger readers, I burst into tears. It was such an incredible honor, one I had never dreamed a book of mine would win. Growing up...
My children have always known they are Cherokee, a fact they shared with classmates in Texas, the historic lands of the Lipan Apache, Comanche, Caddo, and others. The response was often, “You can’t be Indian; all the Indians are dead.” Aside from the impoliteness of non-Natives using the misnomer Indian...
In the picture book Big (Little, Brown, 5–8 years), a young Black girl feels comfortable in her own skin — until classmates’ taunts and two adults’ admonishments make her question her size. Author/illustrator Vashti Harrison’s sensitive, compassionate story ends on an empowering note, with the girl finally able to hand...
How many times recently have you had this conversation regarding a diverse book? “Now they’re banning _______!” “______? But that’s such a beautiful book! How could anyone ban it?” “Yeah, it makes no sense.” But that’s not true. It does make sense. And we have to admit it and understand...