New Releases by Carole Boston Weatherford

CCBC Choices 2015 Best History/Non-fiction Picture Book of 2014, The Huffington Post 2015 Jefferson Cup Overfloweth 2016 Arnold Adoff Early Readers Poetry Award, Honor Book Take a walk through Harlem''s Sugar Hill and meet all the amazing people who made this neighborhood legendary. With upbeat rhyming, read-aloud text, Sugar Hill celebrates the Harlem neighborhood that successful African Americans first called home during the 1920s. Children raised in Sugar Hill not only looked up to these achievers but also experienced art and culture at home, at church, and in the community. Books, music lessons, and art classes expanded their horizons beyond the narrow limits of segregation. Includes brief biographies of jazz greats Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Sonny Rollins, and Miles Davis; artists Aaron Douglas and Faith Ringgold; entertainers Lena Horne and the Nicholas Brothers; writer Zora Neale Hurston; civil rights leader W. E. B. DuBois and lawyer Thurgood Marshall.

A picture-book biography of the first U.S. African-American first lady.

Throughout their father''s twenty-two month campaign for president, Malia and Sasha Obama begged their parents for a dog. Finally, when their father became the 44th president of the United States, he rewarded their patience and good behavior in his victory speech: "Malia and Sasha will get their new puppy." Would the girls choose a Foxhound like President George Washington''s? Or a chocolate Labrador Retriever like the Clintons''? Maybe a shelter dog? Finally, on February 25, 2009, they decided to look for a Portuguese Water Dog to move into the White House. Art rendered in watercolor, gouache, and pencil.

Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award The stunning voice and hard life of legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday is revealed through evocative, accessible poetry written by Children''s Literature Legacy Award winner Carole Boston Weatherford. In 1915, Sadie Fagan gave birth to a daughter she named Eleanora. The world, however, would know her as Billie Holiday, possibly the greatest jazz singer of all time. Eleanora''s journey to become a legend took her through pain, poverty, and run-ins with the law. By the time she was fifteen, she knew she possessed something that could possibly change her life: a voice. Eleanora could sing. Her remarkable voice led her to a place in the spotlight with some of the era''s hottest big bands. Through a sequence of raw and poignant poems, New York Times best-selling and award-winning poet Weatherford chronicles the singer''s young life, her fight for survival, and the dream she pursued with passion.

There were signs all throughout town telling eight-year-old Connie where she could and could not go. But when Connie sees four young men take a stand for equal rights at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, she realizes that things may soon change. This event sparks a movement throughout her town and region. And while Connie is too young to march or give a speech, she helps her brother and sister make signs for the cause. Changes are coming to Connie’s town, but Connie just wants to sit at the lunch counter and eat a banana split like everyone else.

A Jane Addams Children''s Honor Book Written by Children''s Literature Legacy Award winner Carole Boston Weatherford, this poetic tribute to the victims of the racially motivated church bombing that served as a seminal event in the struggle for civil rights is a book that captures the heartbreak of that day, as seen through the eyes of a fictional witness. In 1963, the eyes of the world were on Birmingham, Alabama, a flashpoint for the civil rights movement. Birmingham was one of the most segregated cities in the United States. Civil rights demonstrators were met with police dogs and water cannons. On Sunday, September 15, 1963, members of the Ku Klux Klan planted sticks of dynamite at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which served as a meeting place for civil rights organizers. The explosion killed four little girls. Their murders shocked the nation and turned the tide in the struggle for equality. Poignant text written in free verse pairs with archival photographs in this powerful memorial to the young victims.

Children''s Literature Legacy Award winning author Carole Boston Weatherford pays tribute to sights and sounds of urban life in twenty fresh and rhythmic poems. At every corner, down every block, a city percolates with people at work and play: girls jumping double Dutch, the shoeshine man polishing a pair of wing tips, boys heading toward the basketball court. Each neighborhood is filled with unique characters (the beautician, the barber, the short-order cook) and places (the storefront churches, the outdoor market, the park pool) - all as familiar as family. In quiet moments and lively street scenes, Weatherford''s words and Dimitrea Tokunbo''s vivid illustrations captures the excitement and diversity found in these places that have "no trees / to climb" but where people young and old still "reach for the stars."

Featuring lively verse, fascinating facts, and archival photographs, here is a celebration of the Negro Leagues and the great players who went unrecognized in their time written by Children''s Literature Legacy Award winner Carole Boston Weatherford. Imagine that you are an outstanding baseball player but banned from the major leagues. Imagine that you are breaking records but the world ignores your achievements. Imagine having a dream but no chance to make that dream come true. This is what life was like for African American baseball players before Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball''s color barrier. Meet Josh Gibson, called "the black Babe Ruth," who hit seventy-five home runs in 1931; James "Cool Papa" Bell, the fastest man in baseball; legendary Satchel Paige, who once struck out twenty-four batters in a single game; and, of course, Jackie Robinson, the first black player in Major League Baseball, and one of the greatest players of all time. Written by acclaimed author Carole Boston Weatherford with a foreword by Buck O''Neil, a Negro leagues legend whose baseball contributions spanned eight decades, this book is a home run for baseball and history lovers, and makes a great gift for both boys and girls.

"...Due to the Negro''s social and political condition...the Negro lawyer must be prepared to anticipate, guide and interpret his advancement." Charles Hamilton Houston used these words and a revolutionary legal strategy to train a fleet of African American lawyers to battle for racial equality in the early twentieth century. From forefathers like Houston, grew a confident branch of African-American lawyers who have since broke down barriers and attained inconceivable goals of representation and stature. Lawyers featured include Charles Hamilton Houston, William Henry Hastie, Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker Motley, Benjamin Lawson Hooks, L. Douglas Wilder, Barbara Jordan, Johnnie Cochran, Marian Wright Edelman, and Carol Moseley-Braun.

Cassandra and her family have moved to her parents'' hometown in Texas, but it doesn''t feel like home to Cassandra until she experiences Juneteenth, a Texas tradition celebrating the end of slavery.