Black Hands

Carole Boston Weatherford is a two-time NAACP Image Award Winner, an ALA-ALSC Children’s Literature Legacy Award Winner, and the author of Standing in the Need of Prayer, a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award Winner; Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, which won the Coretta Scott King Author and Illustrator Awards, a Caldecott Honor, and a Sibert Honor; the Newbery Honor Book Box: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom; Family Feast!; and many other acclaimed books. She was also named the 2025–2026 Young People’s Poet Laureate. Carole was born in Baltimore, where she now resides.

R. Gregory Christie has illustrated more than sixty books for young adults and children, including Freedom in Congo Square by Carole Boston Weatherford, which was awarded a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Honor. He has also received two New York Times Best Illustrated Book awards, six Coretta Scott King Honors for illustration, the NAACP Image Award, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award. In addition, Greg has designed John Coltrane album covers and animated films on Netflix, and he operates his online store of autographed children’s books, GAS-ART Gifts. He lives and works in the Atlanta area.