In the nine years I've been sharing picture books on this blog, I've had LOADS to say about Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday recognitions. After reading this post, I invite you to use the search box in the right column menu to find previous featured titles. I've felt strongly positive about the books I chose to showcase, but MANY of them focus on history. MANY are biographic, inspiring and motivating and providing content that could have been missed in mainstream culture through relentlessly white-focused portrayal of American culture. Few, though, are contemporary, humorous, joyful, or playful. In large part that's because books of that type rarely existed. If they did they were the "precious few" that everyone already knew about. Think of Ezra Jack Keats's THE SNOWY DAY (and other titles).
The best news is that, as I began to assemble this collage of covers, I had to stop in order to have enough room for the rest of the blog post! These are only fifteen of my recent favorites, and there are so many more, including others that are featured in past posts on this very blog.
BLACK JOY PICTURE BOOKS!
Click the titles below to read some brief notes for any-and-all that appeal to you:
MIXED ME is written by Taye Diggs and illustrated by Shane W. Evans.
JABARI TRIES is written and illustrated by Gaia Cornwall
FOR BEAUTIFUL BLACK BOYS WHO BELIEVE IN A BETTER WORLD is written by Michael W. Waters and Illustrated by Keisha Morris.
JUST LIKE ME is written and illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton.
MY RAINY DAY ROCKET SHIP is written by Market Sheppard and illustrated by Charley Palmer.
SWISH! The Slam-Dunking, Alley-Ooping, High-Flying Harlem Globetrotters is written by Sizanne Slade and Little illustrated by Don Tate.
MY HAIR IS MAGIC is written by M. L. Marroquin and illustrated by Tonya Engel.
BLACK IS A RAINBOW COLOR is written by Angela Joy and illustrated by Ekua Holmes.
NORMAN The Amazing Goldfish is written by Kelly Bennett and illustrated by Noah Z.
THE WORLD MADE A RAINBOW is written by Michelle Robinson and illustrated by Emily Hamilton.
ALL BECAUSE YOU MATTER is written by Tami Charles and illustrated by Bryan Collier.
EVELYN DEL REY IS MOVING AWAY is written by Meg medina and illustrated by Sonia Sanchez.
BROWN BABY LULLABY is written by Tameka Fryer Brown and illustrated by A. G. Ford.
HELP WANTED: MUST LOVE BOOKS written by Janet Sumner Johnson and illustrated by Courtney Dawson.
DUSK EXPLORERS is written by Lindsay Leslie and illustrated by Ellen Rooney.
Whew! Doesn't that look wonderful? Well, despite this joyful shift in focus and subject matter, here's the bad news. Based on data that is collected and analyzed annually about the patterns of the publishing industry for children's books, progress is being made, but at a glacial pace.
Minimal, barely budging progress.
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2019 Data Analysis “Keep Moving Forward,” is a theme from Dr. King’s address “Keep Moving the Mountain”, given at Spelman College on April 10, 1960. He said, “Keep moving, for it may well be that the greatest song has not yet been sung, the greatest book has not yet been written, the highest mountain has not been climbed. This is your challenge! Reach out and grab it and make it a part of your life…we must keep moving. If you can’t fly, then run; if you can’t run, then walk; if you can’t walk, then crawl; but by all means keep moving…whatever you do you have to Keep Moving Forward.” I can think of no better advice than this to the industry and to the readers, buyers, and teachers of children's books: make your voices heard through recommendations, reviews, purchases, requests from libraries, and social media. Examine your own stock of picture books featuring Black characters and work to update your shelves, making certain to include current, colorful, uplifting titles like these. |
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