carole boston weatherford

Review of The Legendary Miss Lena Horne at Librarian’s Quest blog. Many thanks.

http://librariansquest.blogspot.com/2017/01/singing-from-her-heart.html

Poetry and jazz are perfectly paired in April–the month when Lady Day, my muse, was born. Stream my fictional verse memoir, Becoming Billie Holiday, illustrated by Floyd Cooper. Free of charge if your public library subscribes to Hoopla.

Dorothea Lange: How the Photographer Found the Faces of the Depression. Art by debut illustrator Sarah Green. Snap, snap.

The Legendary Miss Lena Horne, illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon, has received three starred reviews. I hope that this biography will shine the spotlight on Lena for a new generation of admirers.

• * “Weatherford’s writing is succinct and inspirational. Zunon’s oil paint and cut-paper collage illustrations are more than a match for Horne’s dynamic onstage presence. Their dramatic design showcases a . . . memorable life dedicated to music and civil rights, presented with commensurate style.”– Kirkus Reviews, starred review
• * “An exceptionally handsome book. . . . Weatherford’s informative yet succinct text is juxtaposed against a happily oversize picture-book format that allows enough room for Zunon’s impressive oil-paint and collage artwork.”– Booklist, starred review
• * “Weatherford and Zunon vibrantly capture the setbacks and triumphs of African-American performer Lena Horne tracing her rise from a Brooklyn childhood to a singer and actress who faced persistent racism.”– Publishers Weekly, starred review

The Association for Library Service  to Children selected two of my books for its 2017 Notables list.

Freedom in Congo Square, illustrated by Gregory Christie

You Can Fly: The Tuskegee Airmen, illustrated by Jeffery Boston Weatheford

This news capped a wonderful ALA Midwinter for me during which Freedom in Congo Square won the Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. Congratulations to both illustrators on what has been a spectacular awards season. I look forward to our future collaborations.

Being given a book of your own to take home and keep is great. Being given a handmade reading blanket to go with the book is even better.

That’s what happened with second-graders at Cook Literacy Model School and the Elementary School Academy n Winston-Salem, N.C. Last fall, five women from the Beta Mu chapter of the Delta Kappa Gamma Society came to the media center at Cook with a box of books–my own Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-ins–and bag after bag of handmade blankets.

Doesn’t this make you feel warm and fuzzy? Read more here.

The American Library Association Youth Media Awards were announced today in Atlanta. My collaborator Gregory Christie won Caldecott and Coretta Scott King Honors for his illustrations in our picture book Freedom in Congo Square. Congratulations to Greg and thanks to our editor Sonali Fry.