Cheryl and Wade Hudson, co-founders of Just Us Books and editors of the anthology We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices, will join bestselling and award-winning authors and illustrators, PEN America, Penguin Random House, Red Balloon Bookshop, The Children’s Book Council, The Authors Guild and other advocacy groups, public libraries, and booksellers to uplift messages of hope, resilience, and activism for young people in Minneapolis and across the county.
We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices was created in 2016 and published by Penguin Random House in partnership with Just Us Books in 2018. The anthology includes fifty of the foremost diverse children’s authors and illustrators. Eight years later the messages of the anthology remain true, and in light of current events in Minnesota and beyond, ring even truer
Several authors and illustrators from the original anthology, We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voice, will join together in this virtual event to answer the question, “Given the divisive climate in which we live, what does it look like to rise, resist, and raise our voices at the current moment?”
Speakers include:
- Jacqueline Woodson, The Day You Begin and Brown Girl Dreaming
- Kelly Starling Lyons, Sing A Song and A Girl Named series
- Tony Medina, DeShawn Days, Love to Langston and I and I, Bob Marley
- Margarita Engle, Wild Dreamers and Water Day
- Tameka Fryer Brown, Twelve Dinging Doorbells, That Flag, and All the Greatness in You
- Sharon G. Flake, The Skin I’m In
- Ellen Oh, You Are Here and The Spirit Hunters trilogy
Ahead of the virtual event, Saint Paul bookstore Red Balloon and educational partner AMAZEworks will help distribute over 600 copies of We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices to students and libraries in the Twin cities. The books are donated, courtesy of Penguin Random House.