From award-winning author Elissa Brent Weissman comes a collection of quirky, smart, and vulnerable childhood works by some of today's foremost children's authors and illustrators--revealing young talent, the storytellers they would one day become, and the creativity they inspire today.

Everyone's story begins somewhere...

For Linda Sue Park, it was a trip to the ocean, a brand-new typewriter, and a little creative license.

For Jarrett J. Krosoczka, it was a third grade writing assignment that ignited a creative fire in a kid who liked to draw.

For Kwame Alexander, it was a loving poem composed for Mother's Day--and perfected through draft after discarded draft.

For others, it was a teacher, a parent, a beloved book, a word of encouragement. It was trying, and failing, and trying again. It was a love of words, and pictures, and stories.

Your story is beginning, too. Where will it go?

Newbery Honor Book Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book Using original slave auction and plantation estate documents, Ashley Bryan offers a moving and powerful picture book that contrasts the monetary value of a person with the priceless value of life experiences and dreams that a slave owner could never take away. Imagine being looked up and down and being valued as less than chair. Less than an ox. Less than a dress. Maybe about the same as...a lantern. This gentle yet deeply powerful way goes to the heart of how a slave is given a monetary value by the slave owner, tempering this with the one thing that can't be bought or sold: dreams. Inspired by the actual will of a plantation owner that lists the worth of each and every one of his "workers," the author has created collages around that document, and others like it. Through fierce paintings and expansive poetry, he imagines and interprets each person's life on the plantation, as well as the life their owner knew nothing about--their dreams and pride in knowing that they were worth far more than an overseer or madam ever would guess. Visually epic, and never before done, this stunning picture book is unlike anything you've seen.

Long ago, Blackbird was voted the most beautiful bird in the forest. The other birds, who were colored red, yellow, blue, and green, were so envious that they begged Blackbird to paint their feathers with a touch of black so they could be beautiful too. Although Black-bird warns them that true beauty comes from within, the other birds persist and soon each is given a ring of black around their neck or a dot of black on their wings -- markings that detail birds to this very day.

Coretta Scott King Award-winner Ashley Bryan's adaptation of a tale from the Ila-speaking people of Zambia reso-nates both with rhythm and the tale's universal meanings -- appreciating one's heritage and discovering the beauty within. His cut-paper artwork is a joy.

Quiet . . .
like a quilt on a feather bed . . .
and frost on the window . . .
we write our names knowing . . .
the sun will melt them off
But the sun is so quiet . . .
that we don't care
we smile
--from "Connie" by Nikki Giovanni
The quiet and noisy, wintery and sometimes sunny poems in "The Sun Is So Quiet" will always make you smile. Nikki Giovanni describes riding rainbows, tiptoeing through strawberry patches, licking chocolaty fingers, snuggling under covers, and many other wonderful childhood moments. Ashley Bryan's warmest, most colorful illustrations make each page look like a bright, beaming smile.
Together, they have created a collection that you can linger over like a peppermint candy cane or enjoy as quickly as a snowflake melts on your nose.

Who built the stable where Jesus lay? Multiple Coretta Scott King Award-winner Ashley Bryan has a very good idea in this beautiful and moving new layer to the nativity story.
Riding in an open Jeep across the plains of Africa, beloved and nationally acclaimed author and illustrator Ashley Bryan found himself comparing the terrain to Jerusalem, and the bumpy journey to that of Mary's travel on a donkey. And he came up with a question: Who built the manger where Mary and Joseph found shelter?
The answer is conveyed in this beautifully crafted picture book that envisions a young boy, a shepherd and carpenter both who, out of love and kindness, cleared the way for another shepherd and carpenter to be born on Christmas day.
"The boy looked in the infant's eyes
""And in his heart he knew
""The babe would be a carpenter
""He'd be a shepherd too.
"Told in gentle rhyme and illustrated with Ashley Bryan's enormous talent, this is a picture book that captures the reason for the season in all its wonder and beauty. "Who Built the Stable?" is a celebration of Christmas, of the kindness of children, and of the new hope born with each new baby.

Ashley's autobiography is full of art, photographs, and the poignant never-say-never tale of his rich life, a life that has always included drawing and painting. Even as a boy growing up during the Depression, he painted -- finding cast off objects to turn into books and kites and toy and art. Even as a solder in the segregated Army on the beaches of Normandy, he sketched -- keeping charcoal crayons and paper in his gasmask to draw with during lulls. Even as a talented, visionary art student who was accepted and then turned away from college upon arrival, the school telling Ashley that to give a scholarship to an African American student would be a waste, he painted -- continuing to create art when he could have been discouraged, continuing to polish his talents when his spirit should have been beaten. Ashley went on to become a Hans Christian Anderson Award nominee, a May Hill Arbuthnot lecturer, and a multiple Coretta Scott King award winner. As you might imagine, his story is powerful, bursting with his creative energy, and a testament to believing in oneself. It's a book every child in America should have access to and it does what the very best autobiographies do; it inspires!

Recipient of a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award Recipient of a Bologna Ragazzi Non-Fiction Special Mention Honor Award A Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Book of 2019 From celebrated author and illustrator Ashley Bryan comes a deeply moving picture book memoir about serving in the segregated army during World War II, and how love and the pursuit of art sustained him. In May of 1942, at the age of eighteen, Ashley Bryan was drafted to fight in World War II. For the next three years, he would face the horrors of war as a black soldier in a segregated army. He endured the terrible lies white officers told about the black soldiers to isolate them from anyone who showed kindness-including each other. He received worse treatment than even Nazi POWs. He was assigned the grimmest, most horrific tasks, like burying fallen soldiers...but was told to remove the black soldiers first because the media didn't want them in their newsreels. And he waited and wanted so desperately to go home, watching every white soldier get safe passage back to the United States before black soldiers were even a thought. For the next forty years, Ashley would keep his time in the war a secret. But now, he tells his story. The story of the kind people who supported him. The story of the bright moments that guided him through the dark. And the story of his passion for art that would save him time and time again. Filled with never-before-seen artwork and handwritten letters and diary entries, this illuminating and moving memoir by Newbery Honor-winning illustrator Ashley Bryan is both a lesson in history and a testament to hope.

This gritty and compelling ethnography examines the darker side of American education through chronicling the course of Peachtree Alternative School's tenth and final year.. It exposes punitive school policy, demonstrates the prison-industrial complex, and reveals school board corruption. In addition, it pinpoints quality teaching of chronically disruptive youth. As ethnographic nonfiction, The Forgotten Room breaks down the walls between social science and literature.