VIRTUAL PROGRAMMING: Best-selling author Jacqueline Woodson lends her voice to conversations about “what it means to live with intention and be part of a greater good”
Acclaimed author of more than 30 books for adults, young adults and children, including award-winning Brown Girl Dreaming, JACQUELINE WOODSON is a sought-after voice for parents searching for words and resources to help their children deal with social justice and racial equity. “Kids are very deep thinkers,” she observed recently in the New York Times. “They see everything, including our hypocrisies. There’s so many great conversations that can be had now.” Oprah Magazine recently sought out Woodson’s recommendations for Essential Books for Discussing Racism with Kids, which she paired with commentary that black stories are all of our stories: “The Black experience is everyone’s experience. We can step inside and embrace the parts of it that intersect with our own narratives. It’s up to us to decide whose narrative we will not only choose to see, but choose to believe." A MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellow, winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Award and Newbery Medal, and a former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Woodson recently helped to coordinate a virtual #Kidlit Rally for Black Lives, a virtual gathering of authors, publishers and booksellers “to unite in support of Black lives, speak to children about this moment, answer their questions, and offer ideas about steps we can all take going forward.”
Jacqueline Woodson is the recipient of the 2020 MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellowship, is the recipient of the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the 2018 Children’s Literature Legacy Award. She was the 2018–2019 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, and in 2015, she was named the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. She received the 2014 National Book Award for her New York Times bestselling memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming, which also received the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, the NAACP Image Award and a Sibert Honor. She also wrote the adult books Red at the Bone, a New York Times bestseller, and Another Brooklyn, a 2016 National Book Award finalist. She is the author of dozens of award-winning books for young adults, middle graders and children; among her many accolades, she is a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a four-time National Book Award finalist, and a two-time Coretta Scott King Award winner. Her books include New York Times bestsellers The Day You Begin and Harbor Me; The Other Side; Each Kindness; Caldecott Honor book Coming On Home Soon; Newbery Honor winners Feathers, Show Way, and After Tupac and D Foster; and Miracle’s Boys, which received the LA Times Book Prize and the Coretta Scott King Award. Jacqueline is also a recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement for her contributions to young adult literature and a two-time winner of the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award.