Carole Boston Weatherford Books In Order

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Carole Boston Weatherford
Carole Boston Weatherford is a children’s author and poet that mines the past for forgotten struggles, family stories, and fading traditions. A number of her books tell the stories about African American historical figures like Jesse Owens, Harriet Tubman, and Billie Holiday. Other books of hers recount historical events like the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and the Greensboro Sit-ins.

Carole started writing in the first grade by dictating poems to her mom, who pulled over to the side of the road to take down one of her poems, as she realized it was important for her daughter to see her words written down. Her dad taught printing at a local high school, who used poems as typesetting exercises for his students, publishing the early works of his daughter. Since he knew how important it was for young Carole to see her words in print. While she was a child, she loved reading Langston Hughes and Dr. Seuss.

Continuing to pursue creative writing as a hobby through college and high school, she later earned an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and an MA in publication design from the University of Baltimore.

The music found in poetry has always fascinated Carole and motivated her own literary career. She believes that her Creator has called on her to be a poet, as she will hear these words strung together in her head just like a composer will hear chords and notes. Scenes will unfold in her mind exactly like they do on a filmmaker’s storyboard. Just like poetry, quality children’s literature compresses language, evokes scenes, distills feeling, and can be experienced on multiple levels. It is the best poetry that makes music with just words.

For “Unspeakabe: The Tulsa Race Massacre”, she won the 2022 Coretta Scott King Award, which was also a Sibert Honor Book, a Caldecott Honor Book, a Kirkus Prize Finalist, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. She’s also won a Caldecott Honor for “Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom”, which also received an NAACP Image Award for an Outstanding Literary Work for Children, along with becoming a New York Times bestseller.

“Freedom in Congo Square” is a non-fiction picture book released in the year 2017. This poetic nonfiction story about a little known piece of African-American history captures one human’s capacity joy and hope in difficult circumstances and it demonstrates just how New Orleans’ Congo Square was truly freedom’s heart.

While slaves toiled relentlessly in an unjust system in Louisiana during the nineteenth century, they all counted the days down until Sunday, when at least for half a day they were briefly allowed to congregate in Congo Square in New Orleans. It was here that they were free to set up their own open market, play music, dance, and sing. They were all free to forget their struggles, their cares, and their oppression.

This story chronicles slaves’ duties on a daily basis. From chopping logs every Monday to baking bread every Wednesday to plucking the hens on Saturday, and builds up to the freedom of Sundays and the special experience of an afternoon spent in Congo Square.

“RESPECT: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul” is a non-fiction picture book released in the year 2020. Here is the vibrant portrait of Aretha Franklin which pays her the R-E-S-P-E-C-T that this Queen of Soul deserves.

Aretha Franklin was born to sing. The daughter of a gospel singer and a pastor, her musical talent was clear from her own earliest days in her dad’s Detroit church where her soaring voice spanned over three octaves.

Her series of hit songs earned multiple Grammy Awards, the title “the Queen of Soul”, and a spot in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. However she didn’t just raise her voice in song, she also fought for civil rights and spoke out against injustices.

This rhythmic and authoritative picture book biography is sure to captivate young readers with Aretha’s inspiring story.

“Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre” is a non-fiction picture book released in the year 2021. Carole and illustrator Floyd Cooper provide a powerful look at the Tulsa Race Massacre, which is one of the worst incidents of racial violence in the history of our nation. The book traces the history of African-Americans in Tulsa’s Greenwood district and chronicles the devastation which occurred in the year 1921 when a white mob attacked the Black community.

News of what went down was largely suppressed, and there wasn’t any official investigation occurred for seventy-five years. This is a picture book that sensitively introduces young readers to this tragedy and it concludes with a call for a better future.

Readers found this to be an accessible, yet powerful telling of a suppressed and horrific time in American history.

“BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom” is a non-fiction picture book released in the year 2021. The fragility and cost of freedom. Following the life of a man that courageously shipped himself on out of slavery.

Henry Brown wrote that, long before he came to be known as Box, he came into the world a slave. Henry was put to work as a kid and got passed down from one generation on to the next—somebody’s property. When he became an adult, his wife and kids were sold away from him out of spite. Henry watched as his family left him bound in chains, headed off to the deeper South. What more was there that could be taken away from him? But then hope—and help—came to him in the form of the Underground Railroad. Escape!

In stanzas of six lines apiece, and each line representing a different side of the box, celebrated poet Carole Boston Weatherford narrates Henry’s story about how he came to ship himself in a box out of slavery on toward freedom.

It is augmented with historical records and features an introductory excerpt from his own writing as well as a timeline, a bibliography, and some notes from the author.