Last year, our verse novel and family history, KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE was chosen as the One Maryland One Book. In communities across the state, reading groups gathered around the theme, “What We Collect, What We Tell,” to discuss KIN. On tour, we were heartened by readers’ questions and conversations.

While KIN was the first poetry book chosen as the One Maryland One Book, it was not the first time that one of our books was selected for a common read. Here are some titles that schools and communities have read together and some that we think would make great picks:

• You Can Fly: The Tuskegee Airmen
• Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library
• How Do You Spell Unfair: Macnolia Cox and the National Spelling Bee
• Box: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom
• Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America
• Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-ins
• Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement
• Whirligigs: The Wondrous Windmills of One Man’s Imagination
• Black Hands: Builders of Our Nation
• Be a King: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream and You
• Dear Mr. Rosenwald: The School that Hope Built

A variation on One School, One Book is a One Author (author study) program. Nashville Public Schools took it a step further, starting with a professional development on integrating my books into music classrooms and culminating with a district-wide recital. Talk about ambitious! Learn more in this video.

Common reads foster community, connection, learning and growth. If you’d like to organize a common read but want to keep things simple, try a One Poem program. Here are some poems that will get your scholars reading and talking.

• “Fifth Grade” from SCHOMBURG: THE MAN WHO BUILT A LIBRARY
• “Head to the Sky” from YOU CAN FLY: THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN
• “Literacy Test” from VOICE OF FREEDOM: FANNIE LOU HAMER, SPIRIT OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• “Daniel Lloyd” or “Isaac Copper: Why I Am Called Doctor or Minister” from KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE
• “Martin’s Letter” from REMEMBER THE BRIDGE: POEMS OF A PEOPLE (out of print; see below)

MARTIN”S LETTER

Though sermons rolled off his tongue,

Martin could not find words

to tell his little brown girl

why Funtown’s gates were closed to her

or that the “Colored Only” sign

on the drinking fountain didn’t mean

the water was a different hue.

But in a jail cell in Birmingham,

he found the words to tell the holy men

why we would not halt the marches.

He would rather fight off

police dogs and face fire hoses

than wipe his daughter’s tears.

Have you used my books or poems for a common read or conducted an author study? If so, how did it go? Reply in the comments section below.