I like my job at Bloomsbury. Even amidst crazy deadlines and hefty workloads, I enjoy going to an office three days a week to help keep the machine running. Every now and then a random treat pops up on my desk from a mysterious stranger — even more incentive! Last Thursday that treat was, YES WE CAN, a biography of Barack Obama, by Garen Thomas, published by Feiwel and Friends.
“WE NOW LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE THE MOST VALUABLE SKILL YOU CAN SELL IS KNOWLEDGE.”
-Barack Obama
I am already in love with Barack Obama and contribute to his campaign regularly. This book makes me fall even more. It is a book for children about Barack Obama, his childhood, his inspirational words, and his road to the presidency. At 224 pages, it will be a quick read for adults, and an informative one for kids. Nestled within the written facts are also a family tree, maps, childhood photos, and powerful quotes paired with campaign trail photos. Just flipping through the pages made my heart race a bit.
*The book is authored by Garen Thomas who worked as an editor in children’s book publishing for more than a decade, editing numerous notable children’s picture books and novels, including Carole Boston Weatherford’s Caldecott Honor BookMoses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom, illustrated by Kadir Nelson; Nelson’s We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball; and the Coretta Scott King Award-winning novel Day of Tears: A Novel in Dialogue, by Julius Lester. She continues to act as a consultant and children’s books editor on a freelance basis while working on her own writing and film projects. She holds an A.B. from Harvard University.