Carole Boston Weatherford is an African American author and critic, now living in North Carolina, United States. She writes children's literature and some historical books, as well as poetry and commentaries.

Biography more less

The music of poetry has fascinated Weatherford and motivated her literary career. In an interview with The Brown Bookshelf she said, "The Creator called me to be a poet. I hear words strung together in my head just as a composer hears notes and chords. Scenes unfold in my mind just as they do on a filmmaker’s storyboard. Like poetry, quality children’s literature compresses language, distills feeling, evokes scenes, and can be experienced on multiple levels. The best poetry makes music with words."

Weatherford began writing in first grade by dictating poems to her mom. Her father taught printing at a local high school and published his daughter's early works. As a child, she enjoyed reading Dr. Seuss and Langston Hughes. Continuing to pursue creative writing as a hobby through high school and college, she later earned her M.F.A from the University of South Carolina and an M.A. in publication design from the University of Baltimore. Although a Baltimore native, she currently resides in North Carolina and teaches composition and children's literature at Fayetteville State University. Initially, Weatherford was invited to FSU as a writer-in-residence, but in 2007, she received the position of associate professor.

As an author, she acknowledges her calling "to mine the past for family stories, fading traditions and forgotten struggles." The books she writes, in poetry and prose, explore African-American history from a children's perspective and relate the past to new generations. Her works are often inspired by true events, many of which took place in the areas where Weatherford has lived. In her Author's Notes for each book, she includes a portion of her historical research, from which her fiction or poetry emerged. In describing her purpose for writing to the School Library Journal, she says, "I want the books that I write that are set during the Jim Crow era and the Civil Rights era to nudge today's kids toward justice. We've gone a long way, but we still have a long way to go."

In 1995, Lee & Low Books published her first picture book, Juneteenth Jamboree, about a summer celebration in memory of the Texas Emancipation. She then wrote a series of board books for preschoolers. In 1998, she co-authored Somebody's Knocking at Your Door: AIDS and the African American Church, and then published a collection of poetry, The Tar Baby on the Soapbox. After establishing herself as a versatile writer for both children and adults, she published two nonfiction chapter books before penning her first award-winning children's book, The Sound That Jazz Makes, a poem that traces the history of African-American music.

Since then, she has continued to write poetry, historical fiction, and nonfiction biographical works for children. She said in an interview with The Brown Bookshelf that one of the most important poems she has written was Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom: "Those inspired words came together with Kadir Nelson’s soulful paintings and Ellice Lee’s brilliant art direction in a perfect publishing storm. Moses propelled my career to another level." Moses has won a Caldecott Award for Illustration as well as an NAACP Image Award as an Outstanding Literary Work for Children and became a New York Times bestseller.

In 2008, Weatherford published her first poetic novel for young adults, Becoming Billie Holiday, about the development of the artist who she refers to as her muse.

Critique of Japanese Culture more less

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Bibliography more less

Juneteenth Jamboree, with Yvonne Buchanan (Illustrator), 1995, Lee & Low Books, ISBN 1600602487
Grandma and Me, with Michelle Mills (Illustrator), 1997, Writers & Readers Publishing, ISBN 0863162525
Me & the Family Tree, with Michelle Mills (Illustrator), 1997, Writers & Readers Publishing, ISBN 0863162517
Mighty Menfolk, with Michelle Mills (Illustrator), 1997, Writers & Readers Publishing, ISBN 0863162533
My Favorite Toy, with Michelle Mills (Illustrator), 1997, Writers & Readers Publishing, ISBN 0863162150
Somebody’s Knocking at Your Door : AIDS and the African-American Church, with Ronald J Weatherford (Author) and Harold G Koenig (Author), 1998, Routledge, ISBN 0789005751
The Tar Baby on the Soapbox, 1999, Methodist College, ISBN 0967099439
Sink or Swim: African-American Lifesavers of the Outer Banks, 1999, Coastal Carolina Press, ISBN 1928556035
The African-American Struggle for Legal Equality, 2000, Enslow Publishers, ISBN 0766014150
The Sound that Jazz Makes, with Eric Velasquez (Illustrator), 2001, Walker Books, ISBN 0802776744
Sidewalk Chalk: Poems of the City, with Dimitrea Tokunbo (Illustrator), 2001, Wordsong, ISBN 1563970848
Princeville: The 500-Year Flood, 2001, Coastal Carolina Press, ISBN 1928556329
Remember the Bridge: Poems of a People, 2002, Philomel Books, ISBN 0399237267
Jazz Baby, with Laura Freeman (illustrator), 2002, Lee & Low Books, ISBN 1584300396
Stormy Blues, 2002, Xavier Review Press, ISBN 1883275113
Great African-American Lawyers: Raising the Bar of Freedom, 2003, Enslow Publishers, ISBN 0766018377
Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins, with Jerome Lagarrigue (Illustrator), 2005, Dial Books for Young Readers, ISBN 0803728603
A Negro League Scrapbook, 2005, Boyds Mills Press, ISBN 1590780914
The Carolina Parakeet: America's Lost Parrot in Art and Memory, 2005, Avian Publications, ISBN 091033501X
Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her people to Freedom, with Kadir Nelson (Illustrator), 2006, Jump at the Sun/Hyperion, ISBN 0786851759
Dear Mr. Rosenwald, with R. Gregory Christie (Illustrator), 2006, Scholastic Press, ISBN 0439495229
Champions on the Bench: The 1955 Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars’‘, with Leonard Jenkins (Illustrator), 2006, Dial Books for Young Readers, ISBN 0803729871

Jesse Owens: Fastest Man Alive, with Eric Velasquez (Illustrator), 2006, Walker Books, ISBN 0802795501

Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane, with Sean Qualls (Illustrator), 2007, Henry Holt, ISBN 0-8050-7994-4

Celebremos Juneteenth, with Yvonne Buchanan (Illustrator), 2007, Lee & Low Books, ISBN 1600602479

Birmingham, 1963, 2007, Wordsong, ISBN 1590784405

I, Matthew Henson, with Eric Velasquez (Illustrator), 2007, Walker Books, ISBN 0802796885

The Library Ghost, with Lee White (Illustrator), 2008, Upstart Books, ISBN 1602130175

Racing Against the Odds: Wendell Scott, African American Stock Car Champion, 2009, Marshall Cavendish Children's Books, ISBN 0761454659

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Carole Boston Weatherford", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0

Total Books: 85

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2006 - Champions on the Bench (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9780803729872
ISBN-10: 0803729871
Genre: Children's Books
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