Happy New Year!

2023 ended up a lot busier than I anticipated. I couldn’t even manage to post monthly book releases! The holidays have given me a quiet time to finish some things, begin others, and to just sit and reflect. And yes, January releases are coming!

I made it to ALA Annual, NCTE, ALAN, and YALSA Symposium where I led a talk on self-care. It’s something new for me to talk about, but it was probably the most comfortable and engaging talk I’ve done. If you get a chance, do pick up Real Self Care by Pooja Lakshmin (Penguin Life).

Remember Us by Jacqueline Woodson (Nancy Palsen Books), Black Girl Unlimited by Echo Brown (Holt), Big by Vashti Harrison (Little, Brown) and Black Girl You Are Atlas by Renée Watson (Kokila) were among the best books I read in 2023.  

I took myself to Stockholm for my birthday and to Chicago to see The Wiz. I had an article accepted for peer review and hope to get a few more done in the upcoming year. I started Black Cotton Reviewers, a site where Black educators, scholars and librarians review books based in the Black experience for middle grade and young adult readers. I started teaching a course at Indiana University.

Here we are in a white dominated world that confronts its fears of a changing United States by banning books, (i.e., thoughts, ideas and ways of being). Amanda Jones, Roxana Caivano, George M. Johnson, PEN America, Penguin Random House, Ashley Hope Perez, Kyle Lukoff, David Leviathan, Sarah Brannen, Nate Coulter, Reba Kruse, and Shelia D, Crawford have all stepped into the courtroom to directly confront challenges to some of the books that are occurring in record numbers. States like Indiana, Texas, Florida, and Utah have passed legislation that has school and public librarians removing books so that young readers no longer have access to them. Libraries in Evanston, IL, located in the only state in the nation to protect the right to read—received bomb threats.

Twitter under new management and a new name, X, has really broken the free exchange of information in which I engaged. Many have gone on to other platforms, some private and some not, but those aren’t the same to me. X’s algorithms don’t recognize my posts and they’re seen even less than they used to be. That makes me wonder how much content from friends and colleagues I’m missing. While I miss the community, I am acknowledging the sign to get back to doing more lasting work like writing articles, blogging, attending and presenting at conferences, and working on that book I’ve talked about for years now.

A few months ago, I received word that I’ve been nominated to my high school’s hall of fame. What??? Me??? Well… my work began here, and my work continues here, so I had to mention that here. It’s an odd little thing; I don’t work for recognition, but simply to improve the representation in youth literature because I believe this is where we build a more just and equitable world. And that has to be a struggle?? Well, here I am.

2024. Here we go!