I fell in love with Black history at a very young age. I come from a family with roots in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Detroit. A family of Black cowboys, storytellers, landowners, entrepreneurs, gin makers, community leaders, and doctors. Unfortunately, I didn’t grow up seeing these stories told in the books in my school and local library, and Black history, outside of celebrations of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, was absent from the curriculum in the elementary schools I attended. I yearned for books that centered the history of my people with stories of our genius, resistance, and beauty. Though access to those books was limited to me, once I became a teacher, I ensured that my kindergartners would have a classroom library filled with books about Black history; most of those books are written by Carole Boston Weatherford.

Carole’s nonfiction picture books span more than four hundred years of Black history, with titles such as Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre; A Song for the Unsung: Bayard Rustin, the Man Behind the 1963 March on Washington; The Sound That Jazz Makes; Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom, and many more. With over eighty books, many of them award-winning, Carole’s poetry, artistic writing, and collaboration with phenomenal illustrators including Frank Morrison, Kadir Nelson, Ekua Holmes, Eric Velasquez, Jeffery Boston ­Weatherford, and several other artists capture the attention of readers of all ages.

These books don’t just center Black history; they expand the reader’s understanding of the people and historical events Carole writes about. She categorizes her books into Black testaments that focus on tradition; tributes; trials and trauma; triumphs and transformation; and “training up a child.” These testaments give children and adults access to a variety of Black histories across time that they can learn through while honoring the experiences and emotionality of Black folks. The prologues, author’s notes, timelines, and selected bibliographies are proof of the research and time spent to ensure that children receive accurate insight into the past. Because her books cover a variety of Black histories, they are and always will be the ideal texts for elementary students and educators who seek to learn or to enhance their Black historical knowledge.

In addition to teaching children about Black histories, Carole’s books educate adults as well. MacNolia Cox is a Black historical figure I was introduced to through her book How Do You Spell Unfair?: MacNolia Cox and the National Spelling Bee. After analyzing the book for learning opportunities for elementary students, I brought it into a social studies course for pre-service elementary teachers. I used Carole’s text as a mentor for the ways we can pair primary sources with children’s literature to provide students with a fuller understanding of the history they are learning about while showing them proof that an event occurred or that a person existed. ­Pre-service teachers are always fascinated with the number of newspaper clippings I find about MacNolia Cox and her experience at the National Spelling Bee. The feature of spelling words throughout the text and the epilogue showcases Carole’s efforts at research and at providing as detailed an account as possible for readers and educators.

Dawnavyn, Carole, and Dr. Wintre Foxworth Johnson. Photo courtesy of Dawnavyn James.

When I was still teaching kindergarten, Dr. Amanda Vickery contacted me about speaking on a panel hosted by Lee & Low Books about teaching Juneteenth in the elementary classroom. Joining us on that panel would be none other than Carole Boston Weatherford, whom we got to meet virtually a few days before the webinar, and I was starstruck. I could not believe that I would be on a panel with the Carole Boston ­Weatherford talking about Juneteenth and her book Juneteenth Jamboree, which I had recently read with my ­kindergartners during a study of holidays. It was published in 1995 as her first children’s book. Hearing Carole speak about her process of writing the book and affirming that young children can learn about what some consider “tough” or “hard” topics was all the confirmation I needed to continue to engage my kindergartners in learning about and understanding different Black histories and purchasing and recommending her books.

Carole Boston Weatherford has been essential to my Black history learning and instruction as an early childhood and elementary educator. Books such as Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom have supported my teaching of slavery in the United States and the intricacies of Black spirituality. Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library helped me to show students the work that goes into using archives as a source of information to be able to learn, and that Black people do in fact have a ­documented history. To assist my kindergartners’ racial literacy development and their understanding of history as past, or once upon a time, and of the elements we need to retell a story or a history, I taught through the people of ­Greenwood with the help of Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre. These are not the only works of Carole’s that took up space in my classroom library, but they were necessary for my and my students’ Black ­historical knowledge.

I have advocated for the use of picture books as tools that will shape, form, and mold lesson plans, state standards, and learning objectives. Picture books situate Black history into place and make an impact on the content being taught by adding context and providing visual representation to the topic being addressed. I’ve taught about slavery to elementary students before, but with the support of a book like Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to ­Freedom, I can humanize those who were enslaved and their reliance on their spirituality as Carole and Kadir beautifully illustrate throughout the book. Having access to Black nonfiction picture books written by Carole has been foundational for my advocacy.

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Since the Juneteenth webinar with Carole, I have had the opportunity to engage with her and promote her books on social media, receive a blurb from her for my book, meet her at NCTE, and recently, I had her speak to students in a graduate course I co-teach called Teaching Black History with Children’s Literature. I would not be the Black history educator and researcher that I am today without Carole Boston Weatherford. It is an honor to know her, learn from her, and celebrate not only her contributions to Black and African American children’s literature, but also to the field of children’s literature at large. Thank you for your years of educating both teachers and children. Please know that your books are just what this girl needed as a kindergartner in the 1990s to better understand my people and my history. Congratulations, Carole!

From the July/August 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine: Special Issue: ALA Awards. For more speeches, profiles, and articles, click the tag ALA 2025.

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