WE ARE NOT FREE is a 2021 Walter Honoree!!! 🎉 Established in 2016, the Walter Dean Myers Award celebrates diversity in children’s literature in two categories, Teens and Younger Readers, and I am just so blown away that this year’s judging committee chose We Are Not Free as one of their honor books! ✨ We Need Diverse Books does such incredible work promoting inclusive literature, creating opportunities for marginalized creators, and building a more equitable industry, so this is such a huge, huge honor. 🌸 Thank you so much to WNDB and the judges, and congratulations to the winners and my fellow honorees!

Winner, Teen Category: PUNCHING THE AIR by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam (illus. by Omar T. Pasha)
Honors, Teen Category: WE ARE NOT FREE by Traci Chee, ALMOST AMERICAN GIRL by Robin Ha

Winner, Younger Readers Category: WHEN STARS ARE SCATTERED by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed (color by Iman Geddy)
Honors, Younger Readers Category: KING AND THE DRAGONFLIES by Kacen Callender, EVERYTHING SAD IS UNTRUE by Daniel Nayeri

This means I also have the pleasure of taking part in the We Need Diverse Books sixth annual Symposium on diversity in children's literature, co-hosted by the Library of Congress. From WNDB: The​ ​Symposium,​ ​titled​ “Listening, Learning, Creating Communities,”​ ​will be​ ​moderated​ ​by​ ​Deborah D. Taylor, Coretta Scott King/Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement award-winning librarian and educator, and will include panelists Traci Chee, Robin Ha, Daniel Nayeri, and Kacen Callender.

The​ ​Symposium ​will​ ​be​ ​held on ​Friday,​ ​March​ ​12,​ ​2021, followed by the Walter​ ​Dean​ ​Myers​ Awards​ ​for​ ​Outstanding​ ​Children’s​ ​Literature Ceremony. The Symposium and Ceremony will be held virtually. Award-winning author Laurie Halse Anderson will serve as Ceremony’s Emcee. The event will begin at 1:00 PM EST and will appear on the Library’s Facebook page and its YouTube site.

YALSA has named the WE ARE NOT FREE audiobook one of their Top Ten 2021 Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults! ⭐️ I absolutely adore this audiobook and it’s amazing cast of narrators, including Dan Woren, Scott Keiji Takeda, Ryan Potter, Ali Fumiko, Sophie Oda, Andrew Kishino, Christopher Naoki Lee, Grace Rolek, Erika Ishii, Brittany Ishibashi, Kurt Sanchez Kanazawa, and Terry Kitagawa!  💙 Congratulations to this incredible cast and thank you again for bringing these stories to life! ​​

​One week from today, I’ll be participating in BookUp@Home, which connects authors with middle and high school students at over a dozen different sites in New York City, Detroit, Los Angeles, Greensboro, NC, and Huntsville, TX! Registration is free and open to students, so register here! The event kicks off on Wednesday, January 20 at 4pm ET/1pm PT—hope to see you there!

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Whoa! Check out WE ARE NOT FREE on TIME's 10 Best YA and Children's Books of 2020 AND the New York Public Library's Top 10 Books for Teens! So thrilled to be in such incredible company!

Good morning! WE ARE NOT FREE is one of Amazon's Best Young Adult Books of 2020! 🎉 Check out the full list here!