Julius Lester

Julius Lester was an award-winning and critically acclaimed author of books for both adults and children. He won numerous awards, including the Coretta Scott King Award, the Newbery Honor Medal, the American Library Association Notable Book award, the New York Times Out­standing Book award, the Caldecott Honor Book award, and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His novel To Be a Slave is the first Newbery Medal Honor Book by a Black author. He taught for over three decades at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he was awarded all three of the university's most prestigious faculty awards. Mr. Lester passed away in 2018 at the age of seventy-eight.

Jerry Pinkney was one of America's most admired children's book illustrators and illustrated more than one hundred picture books. He won the Caldecott Medal and five Caldecott Honors, five Coretta Scott King Awards, five New York Times Best Illustrated Awards, and many other prizes and honors. He illustrated two books written by his wife of sixty-one years, Gloria Jean: Back Home and The Sunday Outing. Jerry Pinkney passed away in 2021 at the age of eighty-two. Learn more about his life and legacy at JerryPinkneyStudio.com.