Heavy Medal
Tag: African-American authors and illustrators
Review of the Day: New Kid by Jerry Craft
Blisteringly honest with a respect for young readers that is sadly uncommon, Jerry Craft has created something revolutionary: An everyday black boy in a comic for kids.
Review of the Day: Crown by Derrick Barnes, ill. Gordon C. James
Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut By Derrick Barnes Illustrated by Gordon C. James A Denene Millner Book, Bolden (an imprint of Agate) $17.95 ISBN: 978-1-57284-224-3 Ages 4-7 On shelves October 10th Do you ever find yourself wondering if a book is too good to be true? Publishers are sneaky little devils. They know […]
Review of the Day: Patina by Jason Reynolds
Patina By Jason Reynolds Atheneum, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Books $16.99 ISBN: 978-1481450188 Ages 9-12 On shelves August 29th You cannot be a children’s librarian or an adult children’s book reviewer if you do not constantly remind yourself that you have to read outside your comfort zone on a regular basis. Our current […]
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Beyond a Snowy Day: Out-of-Print African-American Children’s Book Classics
Recently Slate decided to create a “pop-up blog” of sorts with a concentration on children’s literature. They’ve called it nightlight. A good name. We would have also accepted “flashlight under the sheets”. In any case, I was initially worried that this would be another case of writers who have just found themselves to be parents […]
Review of the Day: Radiant Child by Javaka Steptoe
Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat By Javaka Steptoe Little, Brown & Co. $17.99 ISBN: 978-0-316-21388-2 Ages 5 and up On shelves October 25th True Story: I’m working the children’s reference desk of the Children’s Room at 42nd Street of New York Public Library a couple years ago and a family walks […]
Review of the Day: Freedom Over Me by Ashley Bryan
Freedom Over Me: Eleven slaves, their lives and dreams brought to life By Ashley Bryan Atheneum (an imprint of Simon & Schuster) $17.99 ISBN: 978-1481456906 Ages 9 and up On shelves September 13th Who gives voice to the voiceless? What are your credentials when you do so? When I was a teen I used to […]
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Slightly More Recent Books on Slavery for Young People
On January 19th, Claire Fallon, a Books and Culture Writer at The Huffington Post, wrote an article called 13 Honest Books About Slavery Young People Should Actually Read. The piece was a response to the news about Scholastic pulling the publication of A Birthday Cake for George Washington and got shared hither and thither and […]
Review of the Day: Jazz Day by Roxane Orgill
Jazz Day: The Making of a Famous Photograph By Roxane Orgill Illustrated by Francis Vallejo Candlewick Press $18.99 ISBN: 9780763669546 Ages 9-12 On shelves March 8th Some books for kids have a hard road ahead of them. Here’s a secret. If you want a book to sell just oodles and oodles of copies to the […]
African-American Experience Children’s Literary Reference Guide (2010-2015)
We’re in the thick of the month of February now and recently I ran into an interesting problem. It being Black History Month and all I was looking to create a list of Black Experience children’s books for my librarians to pull from for displays and purchasing and such. So I trolled about online looking […]
Fusenews: In which I cram in a whole mess of resources just for the heck of it
Two authors of children’s books passed away recently, one on the American side of the equation and one across the sea in Britain. For the Yanks, Bill Wallace has been on our shelves for any number of years. You can read a lovely SLJ obituary for him here. As for the other person, that would […]
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