Linda Sue Park is the author of the Newbery Medal winner A Single Shard and the New York Times bestseller A Long Walk to Water, as well as many other books for young readers. Her most recent titles are the Wing & Claw fantasy trilogy; Fatal Throne, a YA collaborative novel; and Gondra’s Treasure, a picture book about a mixed-race dragon. She loves to read, travel, cook, eat, knit, watch baseball and movies, and play games on her phone. Linda Sue feels very fortunate that her family of heroes includes her daughter, Anna Dobbin, with whom she sometimes collaborates on writing projects.
Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich is the author of 8th Grade Superzero, which was named a Notable Book for a Global Society and a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People. She also writes nonfiction, including Above and Beyond: NASA’s Journey to Tomorrow and Someday Is Now: Clara Luper and the 1958 Oklahoma City Sit-Ins, a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People. She is the coauthor of the middle-grade novel Two Naomis, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and is a Junior Library Guild selection, and its sequel, Naomis Too, a Nerdy Book Club winner. She is a member of the Brown Bookshelf and a former We Need Diverse Books board member. She has contributed to numerous anthologies for children, teens, and educators, holds an MA in education, and writes frequently on literacy-related topics for Brightly. Visit her online at olugbemisolabooks.com.
Cynthia Leitich Smith is the New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestselling, award-winning author of Jingle Dancer, Indian Shoes, Rain Is Not My Indian Name, and other critically acclaimed books, poems, and short stories for kids and teens.
She is a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and teaches on the faculty of the MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Cynthia also is on the Honorary Advisory Board of We Need Diverse Books. She makes her home in Austin, Texas, and the Austin chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators has instituted the Cynthia Leitich Smith Mentor Award in her honor. Her upcoming books are prose and graphic-format novels for middle-grade readers.
Ronald L. Smith is the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award–winning author of Hoodoo, which also received the 2016 ILA Award for Intermediate Fiction.
His other books include Black Panther: The Young Prince and The Mesmerist, a supernatural Victorian fantasy. His latest middle-grade novel is The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away.
Suma Subramaniam is a writer by night, and hires skilled technical professionals for a leading software company during the day. She’s also an editor at Angelella Editorial and contributes to fromthemixedupfiles.com. Suma is a member of the Internship Grants team at We Need Diverse Books. She is also mentorship coordinator for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI–Western Washington Chapter). She holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, a certificate in popular fiction from the University of Washington, and advanced degrees in computer science and management.
Rita Williams-Garcia is the celebrated author of ten novels for young adults and middle-grade readers. Her most recent novel, Clayton Byrd Goes Underground, won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work—Youth/Teens and was a National Book Award finalist. She is best known for her Coretta Scott King Author Award–winning Gaither Sisters trilogy, which begins with One Crazy Summer.
About We Need Diverse Books
In the spring of 2014, We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) began as a simple hashtag on Twitter. Five years later, WNDB has grown from a grassroots movement into a nonprofit organization, with a team that spans the globe. We are writers and illustrators, editors and agents, book bloggers and book lovers, all united under the same goal—to create a world in which every child can see themselves in the pages of a book. As we make our way in this often-troubled world, WNDB clings passionately to the active hope of award-winning author and advocate Walter Dean Myers, who wrote to make sure that we see each other, that we “explore our common humanity” and create new stories, together.
WNDB runs ten groundbreaking initiatives, including the annual Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature, which honors the legacy of Myers. In a 2014 New York Times essay, Myers wrote that he “found who I was in the books that I read.” Myers understood that “books transmit values. They explore our common humanity. What is the message when some children are not represented in those books?” WNDB understands that “there is work to be done,” and through programs and projects like the Walter Grants, which offer financial support to emerging children’s writers and illustrators; WNDB in the Classroom, which sends thousands of books to schools in need; and the Internship Grant Award program, which offers support to a diverse cadre of interns working at publishing houses and literary agencies, we continue to build upon that work.
WNDB believes that all our voices matter, that each of our stories is a treasure. We know that reading promotes empathy and builds understanding across boundaries and borders. This is our third anthology, and it is a testament and tribute to that real power you have, each and every one of you who picks up this book. When Walter Dean Myers wrote, he wrote to gift readers with “the recognition of themselves in the story, a validation of their existence as human beings, an acknowledgment of their value by someone who understands who they are.” Just by reading and sharing this book, you become a part of this important work. WNDB sees you, we believe in you, in the small, good things you do every day. We celebrate the ways you allow your unique story to become your superpower. We are listening to you. We write for you. And we want you to write back, in the way that’s most truly you.
Myers wrote to make all children “feel as if they are part of America’s dream, that all the rhetoric is meant for them, and that they are wanted in this country.” All of us can work to fulfill the promise of “liberty and justice for all.” How can we move ourselves, and each other, forward? How can you take the hand of that person right beside you, that person with their own story that maybe you don’t recognize at first, that story that feels unfamiliar and a little itchy until you remember that everyone brings something special and necessary to this universe?
Who are your heroes next door? What can you do to bring out the hero inside of you? Together, we can transform the world of children’s literature, and beyond.
Visit diversebooks.org to start now.
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The Hero Next Door Page 18