Best Dressed Bookshelf of 2022

Featured Author

Dinah Johnson is the award-winning author of many books for young readers, including H Is for Harlem, illustrated by April Harrison, which received five starred reviews and was named a Kirkus Best Book of the Year, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, and a Horn Book Fanfare title. A professor of English at the University of South Carolina, she lives in Columbia. She invites you to visit her at dinahjohnsonbooks.com.

Jerry Jordan is a painter working in the style of contemporary realism. He counts the unsung artists of the Harlem Renaissance as his artistic role models. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin. This is his first book for young readers. He invites you to visit him on Instagram @purplehood2 or at artistjerryjordan.com.

Learn more about this author

Featured Author

A. J. Sass (he/they) is the author of the ALA Rainbow Book List Top 10 titles Ellen Outside the Lines, which was also a Sydney Taylor Honor Book, and Ana on the Edge, as well as Camp QUILTBAG (co-written with Nicole Melleby). He grew up in the Midwest and South, spending many of his summers with his family enjoying the beautiful Northwoods lakes and scenery in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his husband and two cats who act like dogs. He invites you to visit him online at sassinsf.com.
 

Learn more about this author

Featured Author

Alexandria Rogers is the author of the middle grade fantasy series The Witch, the Sword, and the Cursed Knights and Spellbound Solstice. She lives in Edinburgh with her husband, daughter, and dog in eternal search of excuses to visit Paris. She invites you to visit her at alexandriarogers.com.

Learn more about this author

Featured Author

Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, producer and #1 New York Times bestselling author of 40 books, including An American Story, The Door of No Return, Becoming Muhammad Ali (co-authored with James Patterson), Rebound, which was shortlisted for the prestigious UK Carnegie Medal, and The Undefeated, the National Book Award nominee, Newbery Honor, and Caldecott Medal-winning picture book illustrated by Kadir Nelson.

Kwame is also the Executive Producer, Showrunner, and Emmy-winning Writer of The Crossover TV series, based on his Newbery-Medal winning novel of the same name, which premiered on Disney+ in April 2023. The series was produced in partnership with LeBron James’ SpringHill Company and Big Sea Entertainment, Kwame’s production company that is dedicated to creating innovative, highly original children’s and family entertainment. Other current projects in development at Big Sea include America’s Next Great Author, the groundbreaking reality television series for writers.

A regular contributor to NPR’s Morning Edition, he regularly shares his passion for literacy, books and the craft of writing there and around the world at events like the Chautauqua Lecture Series, the Edinburgh Book Festival, Aspen Ideas, and the Global Literacy Symposium in Ghana, where he opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic in Ghana. Most recently he was appointed the Rudell Artistic Director of Literary Arts and Writer-in-Residence at the Chautauqua Institution.
His mission is to change the world, one word at a time.

Learn more about this author

Featured Author

Amina Luqman-Dawson is the Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award-winning and bestselling author of Freewater and the pictorial history book Images of America: African Americans of Petersburg. Her op-eds on race and popular culture have appeared in The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and more. She, her husband, and her son reside in Arlington, VA. Visit her online at aminaluqman-dawson.com.

Learn more about this author

Featured Author

Matthew Cordell is the creator of numerous picture books including Wolf in the Snow, which was awarded the 2018 Caldecott Medal, Evergreen; Hope; Wish; Dream; Hello, Neighbor! The Kind and Caring World of Mister Rogers; and Bear Island, as well as the Cornbread & Poppy series. He has also illustrated works of poetry, novels, and picture books such as Bob, Not Bob! by Audrey Vernick and Liz Garton Scanlon and Leaps and Bounce and Rooting for You!  by Susan Hood. Matthew lives in suburban Chicago with his wife, author Julie Halpern, and their two children.
 

Learn more about this author