New Get Caught Reading Posters with Authors of The Brown Bookshelf
Announcing 9 New Get Caught Reading Posters Featuring the Contributing Authors of The Brown Bookshelf!
The Brown Bookshelf is designed to push awareness of the myriad Black voices writing for young readers. A leader in the children’s book diversity movement, they were winners of the CBC Diversity Outstanding Achievement Award in 2019. The Children’s Book Council partners with The Brown Bookshelf on book lists, program sponsorships, and now, 9 wonderful new “Get Caught Reading” posters! We thank the following for their books and work on behalf of others: Crystal Allen, Tracey Baptiste, Tameka Fryer Brown, Paula Chase, Gwendolyn Hooks, Varian Johnson, Kelly Starling Lyons, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, and Don Tate.
Crystal Allen is the author of five middle-grade books, all published by Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins. Her accolades include the 2018 SCBWI Sid Fleischman Humor Award for The Magnificent Mya Tibbs: The Wall of Fame Game; starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and School Library Journal; inclusion on Kirkus Best Books and has had books on multiple summer reading and state book award lists, including the Texas Bluebonnet. She is a committee member of The Brown Bookshelf, Co-Director of Kindling Words East, and teaches for Highlights for Children. Her forthcoming book, Between Two Brothers, will release in the Fall of 2022. Crystal lives in Sugar Land, Texas with her husband, Reggie, and two sons, Phillip and Joshua. www.crystalallenbooks.com.
Crystal is caught reading A Good Kind of Trouble, by Lisa Moore Ramee.
Tracey Baptiste is a New York Times bestselling author best known for the middle-grade Jumbies series (The Jumbies, Rise of The Jumbies, and The Jumbie God’s Revenge), as well as Minecraft: The Crash. Her picture book debut, Looking for a Jumbie, and a middle-grade nonfiction African Icons: Ten People Who Shaped History are both forthcoming in Fall 2021. Tracey is also on the faculty at Lesley University’s MFA program in creative writing. For more information, visit traceybaptiste.com.
Tracey is caught reading The City We Became, by N. K. Jemisin.
Tameka Fryer Brown is an award-winning picture book author. Her titles include Around Our Way On Neighbors’ Day (Abrams BFYR) and My Cold Plum Lemon Pie Bluesy Mood (Viking Children’s/PRH), which was lauded as a Charlotte Zolotow Honor Book, a Bank Street College Best Book, a CCBC Choices Best Book, an Abilene ISD Mockingbird Award nominee, a SIBA Book Award nominee, a Star of the North Picture Book Award nominee, and one of NYPL’s 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing. Her work is also featured in the much-heralded anthology, We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices (Crown BFYR/Just Us Books). Tameka’s most recently published book is Brown Baby Lullaby. It was named a Parents Latina Magazine’s Best Latino Children’s Book of 2020, one of NPR’s 100 Favorite Books for Young Readers, and just won Every Child a Reader’s Anna Dewdney Read Together Award. Her forthcoming titles are Twelve Dinging Doorbells and Shirley Chisholm: Not Done Yet, scheduled for release in 2022 with Kokila and Millbrook Press respectively, and THAT FLAG, to be published by HarperCollins in early 2023. tamekafryerbrown.com/media/.
Tameka gets caught reading Unspeakable, by Carole Boston Weatherford and Floyd Cooper.
Paula Chase is a longtime advocate for expanding the focus beyond children’s literature that centers on the pain of the Black experience. In 2008, Chase co-founded The Brown Bookshelf with Varian Johnson, Kelly Starling Lyons, and Don Tate. Designed to highlight the myriad of Black kidlit voices, The Brown Bookshelf’s annual 28 Days Later campaign draws thousands of views to under-the-radar Black children’s literature creatives. Chase is the author of eight children’s books. Her critically acclaimed middle-grade novels, So Done and Turning Point (Greenwillow/HarperCollins), are blazing the trail for books that tackle tough and sometimes taboo topics for younger readers. Chase’s five Del Rio Bay Clique novels, helped Kensington Books launch its YA imprint in 2007. Chase holds a B.S. in Communication from James Madison University. She resides in Maryland with her husband. Together, they’ve raised two daughters. paulachasehyman.com.
Paula gets caught reading Muted, by Tami Charles.
Gwendolyn Hooks is the NAACP Award-winning author of Tiny Stitches: The Life of Medical Pioneer Vivien Thomas (Lee and Low). Her newest biography is Planting Peace: The Story of Wangari Maathai (Crocodile Books; in the UK by Wayland). Gwendolyn writes to encourage young readers to explore their world. gwendolynhooks.com/.
Gwendolyn gets caught reading The Other Side, by Jacqueline Woodson.
Varian Johnson is the author of nine novels, including The Parker Inheritance, which received four starred reviews and was named a 2018 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Book, a Junior Library Guild selection and a Spring 2018 Kids’ Indie Next List pick among other accolades. His middle-grade caper novel, The Great Greene Heist, has been named to over twenty-five state reading and best-of lists. In addition, Varian has written numerous novels and short stories for YA audiences. He was born in Florence, South Carolina, and attended the University of Oklahoma, where he received a BS in Civil Engineering. He later received an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, where he now serves as a member of the faculty. Varian lives outside of Austin, TX with his family. varianjohnson.com/bio/.
Varian gets caught reading The Season of Styx Malone, by Kekla Magoon.
Kelly Starling Lyons is a children’s book author whose mission is to transform moments, memories, and history into stories of discovery. Her books include CCBC Choices-honored picture book, One Million Men and Me, Ellen’s Broom, a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor book, Junior Library Guild and Bank Street Best selection, Tea Cakes for Tosh, a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People, Hope’s Gift, an IRA/CBC Children’s Choices selection and One More Dino on the Floor, a Scholastic Reading Club pick. Her Jada Jones chapter book series debuted in 2017 with Rock Star and Class Act. 2019 brings two more books in her series – Jada Jones: Sleepover Scientist and Jada Jones: Dancing Queen, and two picture books, Down Home with Daddy and Sing a Song. She’s honored to be a contributor to anthologies including We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices, and Been There, Done That. A native of Pittsburgh, Kelly lives in North Carolina. www.kellystarlinglyons.com/content/bio.html.
Kelly gets caught reading Escape From…Hurricane Katrina, by Judy Allen Dodson.
Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich is the author of 8th Grade Superzero (Scholastic), a Notable Book for a Global Society and Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People, and the adaptation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for Sesame Workshop’s Ghostwriter. She co-authored the NAACP Image Award-nominated Two Naomis, and its sequel, Naomis Too (Balzer and Bray/HarperCollins). Her nonfiction work includes: Above and Beyond: NASA’s Journey to Tomorrow (Discovery/Macmillan), and the picture book biography Someday Is Now: Clara Luper and the 1958 Oklahoma City Sit-Ins (Quarto Kids). Olugbemisola is also the editor of The Hero Next Door, a middle-grade anthology from We Need Diverse Books and has contributed to collections including We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices (Just Us Books/Crown), and Imagine It Better: Visions of What School Might Be. Her forthcoming works include It Doesn’t Take A Genius (Six Foot Press), Operation Sisterhood (Crown/Random House), Mae Makes A Way (Crown/Random House), and Saving Earth: Climate Change and the Fight for Our Future (FSG/Macmillan). Olugbemisola lives with her family in New York City. Find her on Instagram @olugbemisolarhudayperkovich and Twitter @olugbemisola. www.olugbemisolabooks.com/about.
Olugbemisola gets caught reading Fruit of the Lemon, by Andrea Levy.
Don Tate is an award-winning author, and the illustrator of numerous critically acclaimed books for children, including The Cart That Carried Martin, (Charlesbridge); One Hope’s Gift, (Penguin); Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite (Charlesbridge); She Loved Baseball (HarperCollins); and Ron’s Big Mission, (Penguin). He is also the author of It Jes’ Happened: When Bill Traylor Started To Draw, an Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Honor winner. Don lives in Austin, Texas, with his family. dontate.com/about/.
Don gets caught reading Dream Builder, by Kelly Starling Lyons and Laura Freeman.
Read more about The Brown Bookshelf here.
Get Caught Reading
These and over two dozen 8 ½ x 11 inches posters are available free to teachers, librarians, booksellers, and parents. The program was relaunched in 2018 thanks to a grant from KPMG and a poster featuring Olympic gold medal gymnast Laurie Hernandez. In 2019 and 2020, posters featuring bestselling authors Kate DiCamillo, Raj Halder, and Raakhee Mirchandani, plus a new animated character, Phoebe and her Unicorn, were made available. This year’s posters feature Kacen Callender, Kristi Yamaguchi, a new animated character, Layla, Charlie Jane Anders, Shani Mahiri King, and a coloring page by The Story Monster. Backlist posters include Alicia Keys, Neil Gaiman, and Alex Morgan, as well as animated characters such as Horton and Olivia.
Up to 10 different posters can be ordered for free using the mail-in order form at www.GetCaughtReading.org.
