Happy birthday Kwame Alexander! Born August 21, Kwame Alexander is an award winning African American poet and author. He is a poet and author of several books for all ages. Read one of his books and I’m sure you will enjoy it! Here are just a few of his notable works:
Heavenly birthday wishes Walter Dean Myers! Born August 12, 1937, Walter Dean Myers was an award-winning African American writer best known for young adult literature. He has written about 70 novels, including the award winning novel, Monster. Some of his young adult literature feature African American young adult males. Walter Dean Myers died in 2014.
Heavenly birthday wishes Janet McDonald! Born August 10, 1953, Janet McDonald was an African American author of young adult novels as well as the author of Project Girl, a memoir about her early life in Brooklyn’s Farragut Houses and struggle to achieve an Ivy League education. She died in 2007. I read Project Girl many years ago. It is a very real, very engaging, and very well written story!
Happy birthday Derrick Barnes! Born August 9, Derrick Barnes is an award-winning African American children’s and young adult’s author. Derrick Barnes is a National Book Award Finalist for his 2022 graphic novel Victory. Stand!-Raising My Fist For Justice, which also won the 2023 YALSA Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction Award, and a Coretta Scott King Award Author Honor. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed, multi-award-winning picture book Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut which received a Newbery Honor, a Coretta Scott King Author Honor, the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award, and the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers.
In 2020, he became the only author to win the Kirkus Prize twice for his twelfth release, the New York Times bestseller, I Am Every Good Thing. The title also won a Charlotte Huck Award (NCTE), and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor. Visit his website for more of his notable books.
Happy birthday Tomi Adeyemi! Born August 1, Tomi Adeyemi was name one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. Tomi Adeyemi is a Hugo- and Nebula Award-winning writer, speaker, and model based in New York, New York. She is best known for her Children of Blood and Bone, book 1 in an Orisha trilogy.
Happy birthday Renee Watson! Born July 29, Renee Watson is a #1 New York Times bestselling author with over one million books sold. TIME named Watson a 2026 Visionary, honoring her commitment to helping children and young people reach their full potential. Renee Watson was among the first authors invited to give a reading at the Obama Presidential Center. Renee Watson is best known for her Newbery Medal winning All the Blues in the Sky and New York Times bestselling young adult novel Piecing Me Together. Watson was among the first authors invited to give a reading at the Obama Presidential Center.
Happy birthday Nic Stone! Born July 10, Andrea Nicole Livingstone, known as Nic Stone, is a New York Times best selling African American author of young adult fiction and middle grade fiction, best known for her debut novel Dear Martin and her middle grade debut, Clean Getaway. Her novels have been translated into six languages. Some of her best selling works are:
Belated birthday wishes Angela Johnson! Born June 18, Angela Johnson is an award-winning children’s and young adult author, poet, and an 2003 McArthur Fellow. Here are just a few of the 40 books she has written since she began writing in 1989.
Happy birthday Akwaeke Emezi! Born June 6, Akwaeke Emezi is a Nigerian fiction writer and visual artist, best known for their novels Freshwater, Pet, and the New York Times bestselling work The Death of Vivek Oji. Emezi is a generalist who writes speculative fiction, romance, memoir, and poetry for both young adults and adults with mostly LGBTQ themes.
Today’s post feature a fantasy young adult author Jordan Ifueko. Jordan Ifueko is a Nigerian American writer of fantasy and young adult fiction. She is best known for her novel Raybearer, which became a New York Times bestseller, and its sequel, Redemptor. Her third novel set in the world of Raybearer, The Maid and the Crocodile, was released August 2024.
The CamaraIfe Maktaba 