Verna Norberg Aardema Vugteveen, best known by the name Verna Aardema, was an American writer of children's books.
Leo Dillon and Diane Dillon were American illustrators of children's books and adult paperback book and magazine covers. One obituary of Leo called the work of the husband-and-wife team "a seamless amalgam of both their hands". In more than 50 years, they created more than 100 speculative fiction book and magazine covers together as well as much interior artwork. Essentially all of their work in that field was joint.
Tom Feelings was an artist, cartoonist, children's book illustrator, author, teacher, and activist. He focused on the African-American experience in his work. His most famous book is The Middle Passage: White Ships/Black Cargo (1995).
Julius Bernard Lester was an American writer of books for children and adults and an academic who taught for 32 years (1971–2003) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Lester was also a civil rights activist, a photographer, and a musician who recorded two albums of folk music and original songs.
Virginia Esther Hamilton was an American children's books author. She wrote 41 books, including M. C. Higgins, the Great (1974), for which she won the U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the Newbery Medal in 1975. Her works were celebrated for exploring the African-American experience, what she called "Liberation Literature."
The Coretta Scott King Award is an annual award presented by the Coretta Scott King Book Award Round Table, part of the American Library Association (ALA). Named for Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King Jr., this award recognizes outstanding books for young adults and children by African Americans that reflect the African American experience. Awards are given both to authors and to illustrators for universal human values.
Jerry Pinkney was an American illustrator and writer of children's literature. Pinkney illustrated over 100 books since 1964, including picture books, nonfiction titles and novels. Pinkney's works addressed diverse themes and were usually done in watercolors.
Brad E. Leithauser is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and teacher. After serving as the Emily Dickinson Lecturer in the Humanities at Mount Holyoke College and visiting professor at the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, he is now on faculty at the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars.
Patricia C. McKissack was a prolific African American children's writer. She was the author of over 100 books, including Dear America books A Picture of Freedom: The Diary of Clotee, a Slave Girl;Color Me Dark: The Diary of Nellie Lee Love, The Great Migration North; and Look to the Hills: The Diary of Lozette Moreau, a French Slave Girl. She also wrote a novel for The Royal Diaries series: Nzingha: Warrior Queen of Matamba. Notable standalone works include Flossie & the Fox (1986), The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural (1992), and Sojourner Truth: Ain't I a Woman? (1992). What is Given from the Heart was published posthumously in 2019.
Kadir Nelson is a Los Angeles–based painter, illustrator, and author who is best known for his paintings often featured on the covers of The New Yorker magazine, and album covers for Michael Jackson and Drake. His work is focused on African-American culture and history. The New York Times describes his work as: "sumptuous, deeply affecting work. Nelson’s paintings are drenched in ambience, and often overt symbolism. He has twice been a Caldecott honor recipient and won the 2020 Caldecott Medal for his illustrations in The Undefeated.
Nikki Grimes is an American author of books written for children and young adults, as well as a poet and journalist.
Andrea Davis Pinkney is an author of numerous books for children and young adults, including picture books, novels, works of historical fiction and nonfiction; she writes about African-American culture. In addition to her work as an author, Pinkney has had a career as a children's book publisher and editor, including as founder of the Jump at the Sun imprint at Hyperion Books for Children, the Disney Book Group. She is vice president and editor-at-large for Scholastic Trade Books.
Ashley Frederick Bryan was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. Most of his subjects are from the African-American experience. He was a U.S. nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2006 and he won the Children's Literature Legacy Award for his contribution to American children's literature in 2009. His picture book Freedom Over Me was short-listed for the 2016 Kirkus Prize and received a Newbery Honor.
Eloise Greenfield was an American children's book and biography author and poet famous for her descriptive, rhythmic style and positive portrayal of the African-American experience.
Karadi Tales is an independent children's publishing house based in Chennai, India focusing primarily on picture books and audiobooks. It was started in 1996 with an intent to create a space for Indian culture in the world of children's publishing, by a group of writers, educators and musicians. Since its launch, Karadi Tales titles have been consistently one of the largest selling publications in India. Many titles have sold more than 100,000 copies and most titles have crossed 20,000 copies. The audiobooks are narrated by a roster of celebrities and set to classical Indian ragas which are performed by trained musicians.
Story of the Negro by Arna Bontemps is a children's history book published by Knopf in 1948. It was the first African-American authored book to receive a Newbery Honor.
Flying Africans are figures of African diaspora legend who escape enslavement by a magical passage back over the ocean. Most noted in Gullah culture, they also occur in wider African-American folklore, and in that of some Afro-Caribbean peoples.
The Hired Hand: An African-American Folktale is a 1997 book by Robert D. San Souci and illustrator Jerry Pinkney based on an African American folktale about an itinerant worker who is able to rejuvenate and resurrect people.
The People Could Fly: The Picture Book is a 2004 picture book by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. It is a reissue, by the Dillons, of Hamilton's title story of her 1985 book The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales and is about a group of African-American slaves who call upon old magic to escape their oppression by flying away.
Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales is a 1995 collection of nineteen stories by Black women, retold by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. They include animal tales, fairy tales, and three biographical profiles of real Black women. All the stories feature comments on their sources from Hamilton.
