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Articles by Angela Joy
Black Is a Rainbow Color Book Review
age 4+ Smart verse and bright art assert the sanctity of Blackness. Parents need to know that Black Is a Rainbow Color, a picture book written by Angela Joy and illustrated by Ekua Holmes (Coretta Scott King Award winner for The Stuff of Stars), brings together affirming verse and brightly colored illustration to celebrate Black people, community, history, and culture.
When You Can Swim: Jack Wong's 2023 BGHB Picture Book Award Speech
Thank you to the Horn Book, the Boston Globe, and the awards selection committee for this tremendous honor. I didn’t set out to write a book about swimming. Its seeds were planted over a particular period of time — namely, the spring and summer of 2020 — when everything around me seemed newly foreign and not to be taken for granted. I took particular solace in nature, collecting observations and imagery whenever I could be out in it.
Preview March/April 2024 Horn Book Magazine
Cover photo by Kristen Joy Emack. Second issue of our centennial year! HB100: Poetry & Folklore: Continuing our centennial coverage with discussion of this issue’s mini-theme. A photo essay by Kristen Joy Emack centering diverse teens in fairy tales. In Memoriam: Patricia Lee Gauch remembers Ed Young. “Tall Tales”: an interview in comic form by Noah Van Sciver and Marlena Myles.
Warrior Girl Unearthed: Angeline Boulley's 2023 BGHB Fiction and Poetry Award Speech
Aaniin! Hello! I am honored to receive the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for Fiction for Warrior Girl Unearthed. Chii miigwech to readers everywhere and especially to judges Martha V. Parravano, Roger Sutton, and Chairperson Erica Marks. Every sophomore novel is a triumph, and mine would not have been possible without my editor, Jess Harold, and the entire team at Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group.
Promise Boys: Nick Brooks's 2023 BGHB Fiction and Poetry Honor Speech
Hey, everyone. Nick Brooks here, sitting before you today with profound gratitude and immense joy as the recipient of this Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Award. This moment is truly inspiring for me, and I am deeply honored to be recognized in this way. And I want to express my heartfelt thanks to the Boston Globe, the Horn Book, and the esteemed judges, Erica Marks, Martha V. Parravano, and Roger Sutton, who made this moment possible.
When Clouds Touch Us: Thanhhà Lại's 2023 BGHB Fiction and Poetry Honor Speech
Greetings, everyone. I’m delighted to be holding in my hands this shiny plate for writing When Clouds Touch Us, a novel-in-verse sequel to Inside Out & Back Again. I was an intern in 1987 at the Boston Globe. Way back then, I was already dreaming of writing fiction, and I never thought one day a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Award would arrive in my mail. Greetings, everyone.
H is for Harlem: April Harrison's 2023 BGHB Nonfiction Honor Speech
This book taught me things that I didn’t know about Harlem. Dinah’s words took me on a journey of discovery. I not only discovered the history behind some of Harlem’s legendary buildings; it made me dive deeper into the actual people who made these buildings so special. When I started illustrating, I decided to divide the book up.
H Is for Harlem: Dinah Johnson's 2023 BGHB Nonfiction Honor Speech
Greetings! I am so thrilled to accept this honor award from the Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards Committee. It is an honor because there are so many beautiful books they could have recognized, so it’s thrilling that they’ve recognized this one. Harlem is a special place with special people and a special history, beginning with the Indigenous people who settled that land and lived on that land.
Choosing Brave: Angela Joy's 2023 BGHB Nonfiction Honor Speech
I am thrilled today to accept a 2023 Boston Globe–Horn Book Nonfiction Honor Award for Choosing Brave: How Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till Sparked the Civil Rights Movement. I am truly appreciative of this lovely award. A few weeks ago, I was asked to record a simple anecdote of hope for a virtual fundraising event. For days, I struggled with what to say.
Choosing Brave: Janelle Washington's 2023 BGHB Nonfiction Honor Speech
I express my deepest appreciation to the Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards judges Erica Marks, Martha V. Parravano, and Roger Sutton for choosing Choosing Brave for a 2023 Nonfiction Honor Book award. It’s a tremendous honor to have Choosing Brave acknowledged among such a talented and passionate community of authors and illustrators.
ORDINARY DAYS | Kirkus Reviews
Children will come away with a hazy sense of Prince but a firmer grasp on the healing power of music in hard times. Lavender-washed pages background this picture-book tribute to Prince. Author Joy grew up in Prince’s childhood neighborhood in Minneapolis’ Northside and even performed with him once; her lyrical tribute to the groundbreaking Black musician is allusive and evocative, eliciting feelings rather than unreeling facts.
Seeing Ourselves: Cherokee DNA Tree of Life: Our Syllabary
Illustration (c) 2023 by Jeff Edwards. The Cherokee language is what ultimately defines us uniquely as Cherokees. We are one of only a very small handful of Native American tribes who have a syllabic writing system. The Cherokee Syllabary was completed by Sequoyah in 1821. His Syllabary contains eighty-six individual characters overall. Soon after the official adoption by the Cherokee Nation, ninety percent of all Cherokees were fluent in reading and writing.
Seeing Ourselves: The Mannequin of Charles Towne
by Eden Royce Jun 09, 2023 | Filed in Articles & Opinion Every Saturday when I was a kid, my mother would take me to the mall. Mostly, it was her looking through racks without making a purchase and me fidgeting, desperate to be anywhere else. I found the stores boring, the endless racks of clothing and shoes. There was nothing to do, nowhere to sit and read, which was all I wanted to do on Saturday. But I had no choice — it was our weekly ritual. Eden Royce at age six. Photo courtesy of Eden Royce.
Seeing Ourselves: Our Stories Could Fly: The Future of Books for Black Children
I own a well-read copy of Virginia Hamilton’s The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales. It’s a classic in many households, as it should be. It’s not just the stories that I return to over and over again; it’s the magical illustrations by the dynamic duo Leo and Diane Dillon. I included this book in the research for my most recent (and next) projects. The title serves as a refrain for my creative life.
Seeing Ourselves: QTBIPOC in Abundance
I’ve always said that my wish for diverse books in the future, especially for LGBTQIA+ books — and even more so for QTBIPOC books — is that there will be so many of them that people can walk into a bookstore looking for the most specific niche and still be able to find it. I want libraries and bookstores to be overflowing with queer books. I want there to be an option for us and by us with every genre, every trope, and every pairing imaginable.
Seeing Ourselves: All Books for All
My hope for the future of diverse children’s literature is that one day, the segregating qualifiers will fall away for good. When my daughter was eight, I remember the two of us combing the library stacks, searching for an appropriate middle-grade book. At some point, a sympathetic librarian asked if she could help. “Well,” I said with optimism, “we’re looking for something like the junior Nancy Drew series, but with a Black or brown main character.” The librarian was stumped.
15 Black History Month Books for Kids – Westchester Family
15 Black History Month Books for Kids Inspire and educate your kids this month (and beyond!) with this collection of Black History Month books. Ranging from board books to activities for older kids, these books offer an in-depth understanding of historic Black Americans and topics such as how to talk to kids about race and racism. Check out these Black History Month Events in Westchester.
The Q by Amy Tintera
Amy Tintera. Crown, $18.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-593-48617-7 Two teenagers living on opposite sides of a quarantine zone struggle to survive in this thrilling dystopian adventure by Tintera (the All These Monsters series), set in Austin, Tex. When a mysterious virus emerged 20 years ago, the U.S. government built the Q, a walled, city-size quarantine zone for the infected. Now, the Q is divided into two constantly feuding factions stationed in the north and south.
Controlled Burn by Erin Soderberg Downing
Erin Soderburg Downing. Scholastic Press, $26.99 (256p) ISBN 978-1-338-77606-5 After a fire destroys 12-year-old Maia’s home and severely burns her sister, Amelia, Maia is sent to stay for the summer with her grandparents in rural Minnesota. While she’s there, her parents will focus on Amelia’s recovery and rebuilding their home. In addition to the slew of fears Maia carries, including of heights and swimming, she harbors a secret: she believes she started the fire.
Choosing Brave: How Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till Sparked the Civil Rights Movement
Angela Joy, illus. by Janelle Washington. Roaring Brook, $19.99 (64p) ISBN 978-1-250-22095-0 In an extraordinary volume, Joy’s cadenced prose and Washington’s dimensional cut-paper artwork portray Mamie Till-Mobley’s (1921–2003) life and efforts seeking justice for the brutal murder of her son Emmett Till (1941–1955). After introducing Till’s death, lines flash back to Till-Mobley’s childhood in small-town Illinois.
What’s Your Name?
Bethanie Deeney Murguia. Candlewick, $18.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-5362-1856-5 “Everyone has one.../ or maybe a few.// So what’s in a name?/ What does it do?” Deeney Murguia explores the utility of names in this picture book of appellative connection. Energetic, consistently metered and rhymed lines (“A name is a meeting,/ a greeting,/ a call.// A name looks for comfort/ after a fall”) alternate with group images of beings using their names.
My Fade Is Fresh
Shauntay Grant, illus. by Kitt Thomas. Penguin Workshop, $17.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-593-38708-5 A Black child narrator in search of a new look for “my bushy, brownish, biggish hair” only wants one thing at the neighborhood barbershop: “THE FRESHEST FADE UP ON THE BLOCK!” But everyone at the bustling establishment has opinions about a fetching new hairstyle: one by one, they suggest an Afro, cornrows, “a tangly tousled top,” and “waves....
Friends Like These
Jennifer Lynn Alvarez. Delacorte, $18.99 (384p) ISBN 978-0-5933-0967-4 After a heartless joke goes wrong, a California teenager disappears in this complexly plotted mystery by Alvarez (Lies Like Wildfire). Though Jessica Sanchez, 17, and Tegan Sheffield, 18, constantly butt heads over Jessica’s boyfriend Jake Healey, 17, with whom Tegan is in love, Jessica attends Tegan’s end-of-summer house party at Jake’s urging.
The Wind Rises (Alma #1)
Timothée de Fombelle, trans. from the French by Holly James, illus. by François Place. Europa Editions, $18.99 (410p) ISBN 978-1-60945-787-7 Two vividly wrought parallel stories, set in the 18th century, intertwine in this gripping historical adventure, a series opener by de Fombelle (Vango). Thirteen-year-old Alma lives in Isaya, a fictional secluded West African valley, with her brothers, Lam and Soum; their mother, Nao; and their father, Mosi.
Best children’s books of 2020 reveal a growing diversity
In 2014 children’s author Ellen Oh tweeted her frustration about an all-White-male panel at an upcoming book convention. The outrage that followed — from White women as well as people of color — led to the hashtag WeNeedDiverseBooks. It went viral. “It’s kind of like ‘Horton Hears a Who.’ We were finally able to be heard outside our little ball of fluff,” said Oh, who is Korean American and had previous conversations with others whose identities were not well represented in children’s publishing.
Not your average back-to-school children's books
The usual back-to-school picture books don’t cut it right now. No need for a first-day jitters read-aloud for first graders because, in the Bay Area for the near future, distance learning will mostly replace real-life classrooms. Thanks again, COVID-19. Kids might get some basics online — the three R’s of reading, writing and ‘rithmetic. But more difficult to deliver will be the social and emotional learning that largely depends on face-to-face interaction.
40 Books to Help You Talk to Your Kids About Racism
“It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” – James Baldwin It can be difficult for white parents to understand and talk to their kids about the racism that’s experienced by black and brown communities. It can sometimes even be difficult for black and brown parents to know how to approach conversations about racism with their kids.
40 Books to Help You Talk to Your Kids About Racism
“It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” – James Baldwin It can be difficult for white parents to understand and talk to their kids about the racism that’s experienced by black and brown communities. It can sometimes even be difficult for black and brown parents to know how to approach conversations about racism with their kids.
Angela Joy (The Children's Book Podcast #561)
Angela Joy (@AngelaJoyBlog) shares BLACK IS A RAINBOW COLOR. This beautiful book, illustrated by one-to-watch and the one-to-wow Ekua Holmes, is Angela’s debut to the children’s book world. The book answers a question from her daughter, and it also bears witness to history, to legacy, and to community.
Black Is a Rainbow Color
A child reflects on the meaning of being Black in this moving and powerful anthem about a people, a culture, a history, and a legacy that lives on. Red is a rainbow color. Green sits next to blue. Yellow, orange, violet, indigo, They are rainbow colors, too, but My color is black . . . And there’s no BLACK in rainbows. From the wheels of a bicycle to the robe on Thurgood Marshall's back, Black surrounds our lives.
8 Stellar Picture Books for Black History ... | Kirkus Reviews
Mary Walker, who learned to read at the age of 116, is introduced to young readers in this lovingly illustrated picture book. Born into slavery in Alabama, Mary Walker was not allowed to learn to read. When the Emancipation Proclamation outlawed slavery, she was 15. She was later gifted a Bible, which she couldn’t read, but she kept it and made marks in it when her children were born. She worked hard and took care of her family and kept postponing her goal of learning to read.
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