We Are Here
(All Because You Matter #2)

A powerful narrative about Black yesterdays that have built the foundation for all our tomorrows.

In this follow-up to All Because You Matter, collaborators Charles and Collier meld pithy, free-verse lines and saturated illustrations to form an empowering treatise that celebrates the Black diaspora across time and space. Attending images of a Black child whose pigtail puffs are shown as holding elements of the universe, early lines focus on individual promise ("We are the seeds,/ you and me") contextualized against history ("From brick and grit,/ we built this place"). Subsequent pages visualize Black figures--including Martin Luther King Jr., Marian Anderson, Howlin' Wolf, and Muddy Waters--taking part in activism, fashion, food production, and music: "We are intercontinental,/ can't you see?.../ Trend-setters,/ Go-getters,.../ multidialectal,/ oh-so-intellectual." Stunning watercolor and collage art--inspired, per a creator's note, by a John Biggers painting of shotgun houses--juxtaposes the structures and other patterned elements to create a shining, surreal dimensionality that supports the book's affirming conceit: "We are fearless, more than we know... Because you and me have always been heroes." Back matter includes creators' notes, and contextualizes figures and contributions discussed. Ages 4-8. (Jan.)