Book Orders for Visiting Authors Carole and Jeffery Weatherford
2025-26 Gordon Berman ’68 Memorial Lower School Resident Authors
The Park School Library is thrilled to welcome award winning author and illustrator (and mother and son!) Carole and Jeffery Boston Weatherford on Tuesday, April 14 as our 2025-26 Gordon Berman ’68 Memorial Lower School Resident Authors.
Throughout the day, Carole and Jeffery will hold storytelling sessions for our Lower School students, including a rap workshop led by Jeffery for Grades 2-5. Their books will be available for sale prior to their visit, and the Lower School Library will host a book signing session with them from 3:10-4:10 p.m.
Our resident author program brings noteworthy authors and illustrators of children’s books to the Park School each year for presentations and hands-on workshops with Lower School students. Read more about the program here.
The daughter of a printer, Carole Boston Weatherford was practically born with ink in her blood. She began writing at age 6 and soon after saw her poems in print. Her 80-plus books have garnered 2 NAACP Image Awards and 18 American Library Association Youth Media Awards, including a Newbery Honor, Coretta Scott King Award and 4 Caldecott Honors. Her career achievements have been recognized with the North Carolina Award for Literature, the Nonfiction Award from the Children’s Book Guild and induction into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. A retired English professor, she lives in Maryland.
Jeffery Boston Weatherford was born with such distinctive hands that his grandmother predicted he would grow up to do important work. She was right! An award-winning illustrator, Jeffery has collaborated with Carole on 3 books. He was a Romare Bearden scholar at Howard University where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree. Also a performance poet and fine artist, Jeffery has performed or exhibited in the U.S., West Africa and the Middle East. He lives in North Carolina.
Carole and Jeffery will sign books for Lower School students from 3:10-4:10 p.m. on Tuesday, April 14 in the Lower School Library. Please place your orders using the form below (or click HERE).
Books Available For Purchase
Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom (Caldecott Honor Book)
Ages 4-8• Hardcover $19.99
Born into slavery, Harriet Tubman hears these words from God one summer night and decides to leave her husband and family behind and escape. Taking with her only her faith, she must creep through woods with hounds at her feet, sleep for days in a potato hole, and trust people who could have easily turned her in. But she was never alone.
In lyrical text, Carole Boston Weatherford describes Tubman’s spiritual journey as she hears the voice of God guiding her north to freedom on that very first trip to escape the brutal practice of forced servitude. Tubman would make nineteen subsequent trips back south, never being caught, but none as profound as this first one. Courageous, compassionate, and deeply religious, Harriet Tubman, with her bravery and relentless pursuit of freedom, is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.
A Hug Like Michelle’s, a Voice Like Beyonce’s
Ages 3-6 • $18.99 (hardcover)
Inspired by photographs of Michelle Obama’s famously warm hugs, this is a delightful companion book to Hair Like Obama’s, Hands Like LeBron’s. Carole Boston Weatherford’s powerful text—illuminated by Savanna Durr’s accessible, jewel-toned art—is an ode to the beauty, strength, resilience, and power that all children have within them. Young readers will learn about 17 inspiring female figures, gaining confidence in their own abilities and cultural legacy as they see themselves in each one. From ballerina Misty Copeland to NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson to Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, this is a celebration of Black history and excellence.
Young readers will learn about the inspiring, strong female figures in Black history up to the present day, gaining confidence in their abilities and their cultural legacy as they learn. The back matter includes an author’s note and biographies of each of the featured figures: Simone Biles, Misty Copeland, Angela Davis, Kamala Harris, Iman, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Katherine Johnson, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Edna Lewis, Michelle Obama, Rosa Parks, Faith Ringgold, Nina Simone, Dawn Staley, Harriet Tubman, Kerry Washington, and Oprah Winfrey.
Hair Like Obama’s, Hands Like LeBron’s
Ages 3-6 • Hardcover $15
From Colin Kaepernick to Martin Luther King, Jr. to Benjamin Crump, Hair Like Obama’s, Hands Like Lebron’s is a picture book celebration of Black history and excellence from New York Timesbestselling and award-winning author Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated bySavanna Durr.
Inspired by the famous White House photograph of five-year-old Jacob Philadelphia touching then-president Barack Obama’s hair, Weatherford’s powerful text—illuminated by Savanna Durr’s warm, jewel-toned art—is an ode to all the things that make Black and brown kids beautiful. Young readers will learn about many inspiring figures in Black history up to the present day, gaining confidence in their abilities and their cultural legacy as they learn. The back matter includes an author’s note and biographies of each of the featured figures: Guion Bluford, Usain “Lightning” Bolt, “Bootsy” Collins, John Coltrane, Benjamin Crump, LeBron James, Lonnie Johnson, Michael Jordan, Colin Kaepernick, Martin Luther King Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Elijah McCoy, Kenrick “Ice” McDonald, Barack Obama, Colin Powell, and Tommie Smith.
You Can Fly: The Tuskegee Airman
Ages 9-12 • Paperback $7.99 • Hardcover $19.99
WANT YOU! says the poster of Uncle Sam. But if you’re a young black man in 1940, he doesn’t want you in the cockpit of a war plane. Yet you are determined not to let that stop your dream of flying.
So when you hear of a civilian pilot training program at Tuskegee Institute, you leap at the chance. Soon you are learning engineering and mechanics, how to communicate in code, how to read a map. At last the day you’ve longed for is here: you are flying!
From training days in Alabama to combat on the front lines in Europe, this is the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the groundbreaking African-American pilots of World War II. In vibrant second-person poems, Carole Boston Weatherford teams up for the first time with her son, artist Jeffery Weatherford, in a powerful and inspiring book that allows readers to fly, too.
Rap It Up!
Ages 4-8 • Hardcover $18.99
Aspiring young rappers will delight in this infectious, read-aloud introduction to the poetry and craft of rap.
From scribbling words on the page to spitting rhymes on the mic, a joyful narrator guides readers through the emotions, literary techniques, structures and motifs that help make rap so amazing. With vibrant illustrations that leap off the page, this book urges readers to believe in themselves and the power of their creativity.
Celebratory and informative, Rap it Up! invites us to see where our imaginations may lead. Get ready to drop some beats, express yourself, and let the world hear what you’ve got to say!
Sidewalk Chalk
Ages 8-12 • Paperback $8.99
At every corner, down every block, a city percolates with people at work and play: girls jumping double Dutch, the shoeshine man polishing a pair of wing tips, boys heading toward the basketball court. Each neighborhood is filled with unique characters (the beautician, the barber, the short-order cook) and places (the storefront churches, the outdoor market, the park pool) – all as familiar as family. In quiet moments and lively street scenes, Weatherford’s words and Dimitrea Tokunbo’s vivid illustrations captures the excitement and diversity found in these places that have “no trees / to climb” but where people young and old still “reach for the stars.”
Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins
Ages 4-8 • Paperback $8.99
There were signs all throughout town telling eight-year-old Connie where she could and could not go. But when Connie sees four young men take a stand for equal rights at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, she realizes that things may soon change. This event sparks a movement throughout her town and region. And while Connie is too young to march or give a speech, she helps her brother and sister make signs for the cause. Changes are coming to Connie’s town, but Connie just wants to sit at the lunch counter and eat a banana split like everyone else.
Kin: Rooted in Hope
Ages 10+ • Paperback $8.99 • Hardcover $18.99
Carole and Jeffery Boston Weatherford’s ancestors are among the founders of Maryland. Their family history there extends more than three hundred years, but as with the genealogical searches of many African Americans with roots in slavery, their family tree can only be traced back five generations before going dark. And so from scraps of history, Carole and Jeffery have conjured the voices of their kin, creating an often painful but ultimately empowering story of who their people were in a breathtaking book that is at once deeply personal yet all too universal.
Carole’s poems capture voices ranging from her ancestors to Frederick Douglass to Harriet Tubman to the plantation house and land itself that connects them all, and Jeffery’s evocative illustrations help carry the story from the first mention of a forebear listed as property in a 1781 ledger to he and his mother’s homegoing trip to Africa in 2016. Shaped by loss, erasure, and ultimate reclamation, this is the story of not only Carole and Jeffery’s family, but of countless other Black families in America.
Grind: An Ode to Skateboarding
Ages 8-12 • Hardcover $18.95
Award-winning author – and one time skateboard mom – Carole Boston Weatherford helps budding thrill seekers learn the ropes of skateboarding in this exciting and rhythmic ode to the culture surrounding this extreme sport.
Illustrator Néstor Omar García López provides graphic art in each spread that depicts the exhilaration, creativity, and freedom of the world of skateboarding. His artistic vision complements Weatherford’s adrenaline-fueled commentary of the sport, from the execution of daring tricks to the serene contemplation while cruising down the street. This duo successfully transports the reader to the essence of skateboarding culture and experience.
Grind: An Ode to Skateboarding provides an A-to-Z learning experience for young readers, beginning with the selection of the right board, decking it out with personal designs and decals, and even selecting the proper safety gear to avoid injury. Readers will even learn how to fall the proper way, because of course, “Trust that for every trick you nail, you’ll first fall, so learn to bail”.
Skateboarding terminology is all over the pages of this book as well. Kick turns, ollies, heelflips, grinds, boardslides, and many other terms are used to teach the reader all about skateboarding. All these terms are gathered in a glossary at the end of the book.
After reading this book, budding skateboarders will most definitely find their groove on the street or in the bowl. Who knows, with all the spinning, grinding, and airborne tricks, their dreams could eventually be realized with a trip to the Olympics!
Whirligigs: The Wondrous Windmills of Vollis Simpson’s Imagination
Ages 7-10 • Hardcover $18.99
Vollis Simpson was a man with a curious mind—always eager to know how things worked and how to fix them. Growing up on a farm in North Carolina, he loved to tinker with machines. And when he served in the Army Air Corps during WWII, Vollis kept right on tinkering. His ingenuity allowed him to build things no one would have thought to create from scraps—a washing machine out of airplane parts and a motorcycle out of a bike.
After the war, his passion for metal creations picked up speed—turning into a whirlwind of windmills as far as the eye could see. Luckily, Vollis’s fanciful and colorful windmills have been preserved at a park in Wilson, NC, where visitors can behold his magnificent and towering creations forever whizzing in the air.
Be a King: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream and You
Ages 4-8 • Paperback $9.99 • Hardcover $18.99
Children’s Literature Legacy Award winner and Young People’s Poet Laureate Carole Boston Weatherford and award-winning illustrator James E. Ransome use key moments from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life to inspire future generations to stand up for what’s right, make the world a better place, and be a King.
You can be a King. Stamp out hatred. Put your foot down and walk tall.
You can be a King. Beat the drum for justice. March to your own conscience.
Featuring a dual narrative of the key moments of Dr. King’s life alongside a modern class as the students learn about him, this engaging story highlights principles that readers today can emulate in their own lives. As times change, Dr. King’s example remains, encouraging a new generation of children to take charge and change the world . . . to be a King.
When I Move
Ages 4-8 • Hardcover $18.99
An ode to being active and to dramatic play, this inspiring picture book will inspure young readers to get moving and start imagining! Perfect for fans of Ruth Krauss’s I Can Fly and Ashley Spires’s The Most Magnificent Thing.
Simple, engaging rhymes will inspire little ones to jump, run, and explore the limitless possibilities of their imagination in this energizing ode to movement by award-winning author Carole Boston Weatherford.
When I Move is an energetic celebration of joy and exploration; perfect for little ones learning to navigate new experiences and friendships as they find their way in the world.
