Celebrating the Picture Book Unspeakable
Celebrated author Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrator Floyd Cooper provide a powerful look at the Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the worse incidents of racial violence in our nations history. The book traces the history of African Americans in Tulsa’s Greenwood district and chronicles the devastation that occurred in 1921 when a white mob attacked the Black community. Winner of the Coretta Scott King Book Awards for Author and Illustrator A Caldecott Honor Book A Sibert Honor Book Longlisted for the National Book Award A Kirkus Prize Finalist A Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book “A must-have”–Booklist (starred review)Carole Boston Weatherford
Carole Boston Weatherford is an award-winning author of children’s books, including Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America (NAACP Image Award), Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement (Caldecott Honor, Sibert Honor, Coretta Scott King John Steptoe New Talent Award and Flora Steiglitz Straus Award from Bank Street College of Education), Sugar Hill: Harlem’s Historic Neighborhood(Arnold Adoff Early Poetry Honor), Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom (NAACP Image Award, Coretta Scott King Award and Caldecott Honor Medal), Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane (Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor and the SCBWI Golden Kite Honor) and many more.
For career achievements, Carole received the Ragan-Rubin Award from North Carolina English Teachers Association and the North Carolina Literature Award, among the state’s highest civilian honors. She holds an M.A. in publications design from University of Baltimore and an M.F.A. in creative writing from University of North Carolina, Greensboro. She is a Professor of English at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina.
Floyd Cooper
Floyd Cooper, a celebrated children’s book illustrator who explored the African American experience in stories rooted in history, died on July 15, 2021, but his memory and legacy live one. Over 30 years, he illustrated children’s stories that not only carried his earthy and golden pastel impressions of Black life, but that also strived to recount chapters of African American history that he felt weren’t taught enough in classrooms. He saw humanity in every subject, in people of all ages.
The Floyd Cooper Scholarship
Honoring the contributions of Floyd Cooper to the field of children’s literature through his mentorship, writing, and illustration. This scholarship celebrates illustrators and Black and Indigenous communities.The Art Wall
