Shannon Gibney was adopted as an infant in 1975, and grew up in a multiracial family. From her bio: “When she was 15, her father gave her James Baldwin’s Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone, a book that changed her life and made her see the possibilities of the written word. The novel took a long, difficult look at relations between Blacks and Whites, the poor and the rich, gay and straight people, and fused searing honesty with metaphorical beauty. After this experience, Shannon knew that she needed to read everything Baldwin had ever written, and also that she wanted to emulate his strategy of telling the most dangerous, and therefore liberating kind of truth, through writing.” Gibney’s debut YA novel, SEE NO COLOR, was called “an exceptionally accomplished debut” by Kirkus, and School Library Journal points out that “without lecturing readers, Gibney clearly elucidates many issues…

In MAMA’S NIGHTINGALE, award-winning author Edwidge Danticat, who was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and grew up in New York, tells a timely and finely wrought tale in English and Kreyol of a daughter who is empowered to become an advocate on her mother’s behalf. From the publisher: “After Saya’s mother is sent to an immigration detention center, Saya finds comfort in listening to her mother’s warm greeting on their answering machine. To ease the distance between them while she’s in jail, Mama begins sending Saya bedtime stories inspired by Haitian folklore on cassette tape. Moved by her mother’s tales and her father’s attempts to reunite their family, Saya writes a story of her own—one that just might bring her mother home for good.”

School Library Journal, in a starred review, notes that “Danticat, who was born in Haiti, was separated from her parents until she was 12 years…

The Brown Bookshelf is honored to present Cheryl Willis Hudson to our readers. Not only is she an author, she is also a executive in a publishing company she built with her husband. You will be inspired and uplifted by her amazing story of dedication and passion for African American children’s literature.

The Journey
My path in publishing has been one that emerged from my adventures as a grade school doodler and teacher’s helper to that of professional children’s book publisher. As a child, I loved doing book reports where I could embellish book summaries by adding my own drawings, speech balloons and illustrated book jackets. I also helped my mom, who was a teacher, create bulletin boards and posters and correct her students’ homework. I loved making my own greeting cards for friends, cutting and pasting photographs in scrapbooks, reading poetry and nonfiction and doing things with my hands, so…

From football to fun books, our spotlight shines on an author who retired from one action-packed job, and took on another!  The Brown Bookshelf is honored to present to you on this 16th Day of February:

TREVOR PRYCE

In 1997, Trevor Pryce was selected by the Denver Broncos in the first round of the NFL Draft. He made his presence known through his NFL career with numerous tackles and sacks, and ultimately, was on back-to-back winning Super Bowl teams.

After retiring, Trevor Pryce decided to tackle a different opportunity. In his interview with Purpose to Play, he states that after retirement, he tried to write movie scores, but ended up creating a trilogy of children’s books, the first being An Army of Frogs, an adventure where frogs and turtles defend their homeland against spiders and scorpions set in the Australia.

Since An Army of the Frogs released in…

In 2012, Vaunda Micheaux Nelson won a Coretta Scott King Author Honor award for No Crystal Stair(Carolrhoda, 2012), a young adult “documentary novel” based on the life and work of her great-uncle and Harlem bookseller, Lewis H. Michaux. InThe Book Itch: Freedom, Truth, and Harlem’s Greatest Bookstore (Carolrhoda, 2015), Nelson introduces a younger audience to the owner of the historic National Memorial African Bookstore. The story is told from the perspective of his son, Lewis Michaux, Jr., and emphasizes his father’s role as a literacy pioneer in the civil rights movement–one who established a refuge and creative think-space for other activists, scholars, and anyone interested in literature by or about people of the African diaspora. Michaux’s bookstore held over 200,000 such titles, making it the largest “black bookstore” in the country at the time.

The Book Itch is a 2016 CSK Illustrator Honor book. A description from the publisher reads:

“In the 1930s…

As a child, Tom Feelings’ aunt, a soldier of the 1960s Black Arts Movement, supplied him with a steady stream of books written by Black authors that featured characters that looked like him. The hope was that these books would end her nephew’s fixation with Christopher Robin (of Winnie The Pooh), and other white characters in all of the books he loved. She wanted Feelings to see positive images of Black people. She wanted him to love himself. In studying Feeling’s work as an adult, it quickly becomes apparent that his aunt’s plan worked.

Feelings was born in Brooklyn, NY, and studied at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School in New York and later at the School of Visual Arts. While there, he noticed that all of the artists being studied in school, the so-called great masters, were white. Feelings asked his professor why. He was told that African art was seen as “primitive.” Feelings refused to accept this notion and set out to create wonderful art that celebrated and…

Photo Credit: Robin Cooper

On March 7, 1965, hundreds gathered at Selma’s Brown Chapel A.M.E. to push for voting rights and protest the state trooper killing of activist Jimmie Lee Jackson. They united for a days-long march to Montgomery, Alabama. But at the end of Selma’s Edmund Pettus bridge, they faced terror and violence. A wall of troopers, deputies and others rained blows on the peaceful marchers and flooded them with tear gas. That horrific day was called Bloody Sunday. Lynda Blackmon Lowery was the youngest person there. Her memoir, Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the Selma Voting Rights March (Dial, 2015), is her testimony.

The oldest of four children, Lowery grew up in a loving, close-knit black community where everyone helped and looked out for each other. But though she felt safe at George Washington Carver Homes, the ugliness of racism was all around her hometown of Selma. “When my mother died,” she recounts in the book, “I heard…

At 13-years-old, Mo’ne Davis became the first African American girl to play in a Little League World Series. She was the first African American girl to earn a win and to pitch a shutout in the 2014 Little League World Series. She can throw a 70 miles per hour fastball. And her curve ball is positively scary. Baseball isn’t even her favorite sport. Basketball is number one. Now she has written a book about her miraculous achievements, Mo’NE DAVIS REMEMBER MY NAME. Girls (and boys) will be inspired by her achievements and will definitely remember her name.

From the Back Cover
This inspiring memoir from a girl who learned to play baseball with the boys and rose to national stardom before beginning eighth grade will encourage young readers to reach for their dreams no matter the odds.
At the age of thirteen, Mo’ne Davis became the first female pitcher to…