28 Feb: The Brown Bookshelf

The Brown Bookshelf is designed to push awareness of the myriad Black voices writing for young readers. Their flagship initiative is 28 Days Later, a month-long showcase of the best in Picture Books, Middle Grade, and Young Adult novels written and illustrated by Black creators.

In 2021, the Highlights Foundation, in partnership with The Brown Bookshelf, presented a year-long program called Amplify Black Stories, with a focus on supporting Black storytellers while confronting industry challenges and fostering change. In 2025, The Brown Bookshelf partnered with Black Stories Amplified to highlight Black authors and illustrators through their Black History Month celebration, 28 Days Later. 

The Brown Bookshelf has consistently been promoting Black voices since 2007. This work is conducted through its blog, its members’ social media sites, and at conferences such as ALA and NCTE. Their work continues to be part of the kidlit community.

Meet the Brown Bookshelf creators!

Paula Chase Hyman
Co-founder of the award-winning blog, The Brown Bookshelf, Paula Chase is a longtime advocate for diversifying the type of fiction featuring Black characters that’s highlighted among educators, librarians and parents. She’s a recipient of the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) Konigsberg Award for her advocacy.

Watch for: :
Balancing Acts (Wednesday Books) dropping 9/9/25.
Website: https://paulachasehyman.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/thatpaulachase/
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/thatpaulachase.bsky.social

Varian Johnson
Varian Johnson was born in Florence, South Carolina, and attended the University of Oklahoma, where he received a BS in Civil Engineering. He later received an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is honored to now be a member of the faculty.

Varian  is the author of several novels for children and young adults, including The Parker Inheritance, which won both Coretta Scott King Author Honor and Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor awards; The Great Greene Heist, an ALA Notable Children’s book and Kirkus Reviews Best Book; and the graphic novel Twins, illustrated by Shannon Wright, an NPR Best Book. Varian lives outside of Austin, TX with his family.

Watch for: Little Big Man (Orchard Books) Available 6 May.
Website: https://varianjohnson.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/mrvarianjohnson/
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/varianjohnson.bsky.social

Kelly Starlings Lyon
Kelly Starling Lyons is a founding member of The Brown Bookshelf, a teaching artist, and an award-winning author of more than 30 books for young readers. Her mission is to center Black heroes, celebrate family, friendship, & heritage, and show all kids the stories they hold inside. Among her acclaimed picture books are Caldecott Honor winner Going Down Home with Daddy, illustrated by Daniel Minter; Christopher Award winner Tiara’s Hat Parade, illustrated by Nicole Tadgell; and Bank Street Best

Books selections Sing a Song: How Lift Every Voice & Sing Inspired Generations, illustrated by Keith Mallett, and My Hands Tell a Story, illustrated by Tonya Engel. Kelly is also the author of three popular series for young people—chapter books starring her characters Jada Jones and Miles Lewis, and the Ty’s Travels easy readers which won a Geisel Honor for Zip, Zoom. Her nonfiction titles include two books in Chelsea Clinton’s She Persisted series, chapter books on Dr. Dorothy I. Height and Mrs. Coretta Scott King. Kelly was named to Good Morning America’s 2021 list, Who’s Making Black History. She regularly presents to schools, libraries, festivals, and conferences around the country.

Watch for:
Kelly’s Author Study Guide
Ty’s Travels: Showtime! (HarperCollins, 2024)
Website: https://kellystarlinglyons.com/about/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/kelstarly/
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/kelstarly.bsky.social

Don Tate
Don Tate is an award-winning author, and the illustrator of numerous critically acclaimed books for children. He is also one of the founding hosts of the blog The Brown Bookshelf – a blog designed to push awareness of the myriad of African American voices writing for young readers, with book reviews, author and illustrator interviews. Don frequently speaks at schools, public libraries and writing conferences, and participates in book festivals.

Watch for:
Let Them Fly, written by Don Tate and Illustrated by David Cooper, a nonfiction picture book that tells the story of the Tuskegee Airmen and the Black meteorologists without whom the Airmen would not have been able to fly. Publication slated for fall 2026
Website: https://dontate.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/devas_t/
https://bsky.app/profile/dontate.bsky.social

Crystal Allen
I posted about Crystal Allen earlier this month, so let’s get a little more personal. She was born in a military hospital in Germany because her dad was in the Army. She’s the youngest of five children. Crystal spent lots of my young years in New Albany, Indiana where she was corn-shucking and multiplication queen of her third grade class.

Watch for: 
Crystal’s latest book, Between Two Brothers (Storytide, 2024)
Website: https://crystalallenbooks.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/rcpjallen/

Tameka Fryer Brown
Tameka has gone from medical supplies sales rep to full-time mom to children’s book author. Her picture book titles include Brown Baby Lullaby, All the Greatness in You, Prayer Is, Not Done Yet: Shirley Chisholm’s Fight for Change, Twelve Dinging Doorbells, and My Cold Plum Lemon Pie Bluesy Mood. Her work also appears in the anthology We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices. She currently resides in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Watch for:
Did you know Tameka wrote a book about Shirley Chisholm – one Kirkus called “As powerful as the woman it profiles.” It’s one you shouldn’t miss: Not Done Yet: Shirley’s Fight for Change (Millbrook Press, 2022)
Website: https://tamekafryerbrown.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/tamekafryerbrown/
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/tamekafryerbrown.bsky.social

Gwendolyn Hooks
Gwendolyn Hooks is the author of over 20 books for children. She was born in Savannah, Georgia, but since her dad was in the Air Force they moved around a lot. She has lived in Texas, Washington, and Italy. She writes both fiction and nonfiction to encourage children to explore their world. Readers will find pets, friendship, and family sprinkled throughout Gwendolyn’s stories because that’s what inspires her. Her latest [2016], the eight book Pet Club series is all about pets: a cat, dog, fish, and a rat. Even her nonfiction books are about animals and a few plants. 

Watch for:
Gwendolyns latest book, Planting Peace: The Story of Wangari Maathai (Crocodile Books, 2021)

Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich is the author of 8th Grade Superzero, which was named a Notable Book for a Global Society, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, an adaptation for Sesame Workshop’s Ghostwriter. She also writes nonfiction, including Above and Beyond: NASA’s Journey to Tomorrow, and Someday is Now: Clara Luper and the 1958 Oklahoma City Sit-Ins. She is the coauthor of the middle grade novel Two Naomis, a Junior Library Guild selection and NAACP Image Award nominee, and its sequel, Naomis Too. She is a member of the Brown Bookshelf, editor of the We Need Diverse Books anthology The Hero Next Door, and teaches at the Solstice MFA Program in Creative Writing. She holds an MA in education, and has written frequently on parenting and literacy-related topics for Brightly, American Baby, Healthy Kids, and other outlets.

Watch for:
Two upcoming books in 2025: The Kids in Mrs. Z’s Class (Summer, 2025) and Makeda Makes a Mountain (March, 2025)
IG: https://www.instagram.com/olugbemisolarhudayperkovich/
Website: https://www.olugbemisolabooks.com/
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/olugbemisolabooks.bsky.social

Tracey Baptiste 
Tracey Baptiste is the New York Times-bestselling author of Minecraft: The Crash and the acclaimed middle grade fantasy trilogy The Jumbies. She has also written the middle grade nonfiction African Icons: Ten People Who Shaped History, as well as the popular picture books: Because Claudette and Mermaid and Pirate.

Growing up in Trinidad, Tracey loved books. When she was three, her mother bought her an oversized, illustrated copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and from that moment on, she knew she wanted to be a writer. Tracey once started her very own library in her house… and secretly hoped everyone would bring their books back late so she could collect fines and become rich. As an eleven-year-old, she was inspired by V. S. Naipaul’s Miguel Street, and read the book so many times, her brother’s hand-me-down copy disintegrated. After moving to the United States when she was fifteen, she read Rosa Guy’s The Friends, and that’s when she knew she wanted to write for kids.

Watch for:
Super Goat Girl (Nancy Paulsen Books, July 2025)
IG: https://www.instagram.com/traceybaptistewrites/
Website: https://www.traceybaptiste.com/
BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/traceybaptiste.bsky.socia

Filed under: Creators