The Brown Bookshelf

Great news, BIRD has been selected as a finalist for The Brown Bookshelf’s 28 Days Later Contest. Hurray!

Here is an excerpt from the letter sent to Zetta Elliott announcing the great news:

28 Days Later is our much-anticipated initiative that will celebrate vanguard Black children’s book authors and emerging and established African-American authors who are flying under-the-radar of teachers, librarians and parents. We will also feature four illustrators in a special spotlight.

Through a highly-competitive selection process, we scoured the shelves to find top author contenders in picture books, middle-grade and YA.  We also received more than 100 nominations from librarians, teachers, publishers, authors, children’s book lovers and others in the kidlit field. Then came the hard part, cutting those names down to the 24 stand-outs we would feature in the campaign. We’re happy to say you’re part of that elite group.

Every day, during the month of February, we will feature a different author via an interview or book review.  The interviews will be posted at our web site: www.thebrownbookshelf.com. We’ll also feature our top 24 authors and four illustrators in a color poster designed by The Brown Bookshelf team member, illustrator Don Tate. It will be available for download.  We hope it becomes a valued part of libraries and classrooms.

To make sure our 28 Days Later campaign reaches our intended audience, we have partnered with the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA) and African American Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (AACBWI) to spread the good news.

Congrats to Zetta who will be their featured author on February 7th.