Nikki Giovanni wrote many books of poetry for children and adults, including Rosa , a Caldecott Honor book, Lincoln and Douglass , The Genie in the Jar , and Ego-tripping and Other Poems for Young People . Giovanni called herself, "a Black American, a daughter, a mother, a professor of English." She was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Lincoln Heights, an all-black suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. She studied at Fisk University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University. She published her first book of poetry, Black Feeling Black Talk , in 1968, and since then became one of America's most widely read poets. Oprah Winfrey named her as one of her twenty-five "Living Legends." Her autobiography Gemini was a finalist for the National Book Award, and several of her books received NAACP Image Awards. She received twenty-five honorary degrees, and numerous other distinctions, including being named Woman of the Year by Mademoiselle Magazine , The Ladies Home Journal and Ebony , the first recipient of the Rosa L.

Parks Woman of Courage Award, and the Langston Hughes Medal for poetry. Nikki Giovanni lived in Christiansburg, Virginia, where she was a professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. She died in 2024 at the age of 81. Ashley Bryan (1923-2022) was a multi-award-winning children's book author and illustrator with several Coretta Scott King Awards, a Newbery Honor, and a Children's Literature Legacy Award (formerly the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award) among his honors. Named one of New York Public Library's Literary Lions in 2008, he also taught art at such institutions as Dalton School, Philadelphia College of Art, Queens College, and Dartmouth College. Telling stories of African folklore and the African-American experience for more than sixty years, his books include Beat the Story-Drum, Pum-Pum , Beautiful Blackbird , Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life and Infinite Hope: A Black Artist's Journey from World War II to Peace . He also contributed his collage art to Richard Wright's Black Boy , Nikki Giovanni's The Sun Is So Quiet (a Parents' Choice Award-winner), and Langston Hughes's Carol of the Crown King: Nativity Poems among many others.