children's books by the weatherfords

Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-ins tells this story through the eyes of a fictional eyewitness who wants to eat at the whites-only lunch counter. Here’s a bookmark with a banana split recipe to share with your students.

MLK would be 90 on January 15. Observe his holiday with my un-biography YOU CAN BE A KING: DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.’S DREAM AND YOU (illustrated by James Ransome). With a service-learning project and reader’s theater built-in, the text lends itself to multiple narrators and a chorus. Add props, music and slides. Or combine the reading with a live paint or quick draw of a King mural. Here’s a planning guide and reader’s theater script. Do share!

ILA’s Literacy Daily blog featured a list of read alouds for ages 4 to 15+. The Legendary Miss Lena Horne, illustrated by Elizaabeth Zunon was the pick for ages 15 and up.

Several years ago, a librarian once introduced me prior to a keynote by saying, “Carole Boston Weatherford doesn’t write picture books; she writes illustrated books for adults.” I don’t know if that’s true or not, although I will admit to tackling provocative subjects and themes. In a way, aren’t picture books just lavishly illustrated short stories characterized by an economy of language? Here are some other picture books of mine that might fit the bill for teen read alouds.

Do or have you read aloud to teen? What picture books would you share with teens?

Besides making several shortlists, SCHOMBURG and THE LEGENDARY MISS LENA HORNE also won a few awards. I am so proud of both books and grateful to the ancestors for letting their stories flow from me. Ashe’

For THE LEGENDARY MISS LENA HORNE

Arnold Adoff Early Readers Poetry Award

For SCHOMBURG: THE MAN WHO BUILT A LIBRARY

SCBWI Golden Kite Award for Nonfiction

We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) Walter Award

Carter G. Woodson Honor, National Council for the Social Studies

Jefferson Cup Honor, Virginia Library Association

Teaching for Change compiled this list that includes Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-ins and Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement. Also appropriate for middle grades: Birmingham, 1963, which won multiple awards.

In her Golden Globe speech, Oprah told girls, “A new day has come!” This picture book shows how the media  mogul got her start–speaking in a rural Mississippi church during the Jim Crow era. She wanted to be paid to talk when she grew up. Could she talk her way into the Oval Office?