Let It Shine!

Carole Boston Weatherford is a two-time NAACP Image Award Winner, an ALA-ALSC Children’s Literature Legacy Award Winner, and the author of Standing in the Need of Prayer, a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award Winner; Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, which won the Coretta Scott King Author and Illustrator Awards, a Caldecott Honor, and a Sibert Honor; the Newbery Honor Book Box: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom; Family Feast!; and many other acclaimed books. She was also named the 2025–2026 Young People’s Poet Laureate. Carole was born in Baltimore, where she now resides.

Tequitia Andrews is an artist and illustrator from Richmond, Virginia. Starting off primarily as a painter, Tequitia (pronounced tuh-KEE-ta) took an independent learning journey focusing on all the different facets of art making and found her voice in the world of illustration. She has illustrated the picture books Every Body: A First Conversation About Bodies, The Story of Serena Williams: An Inspiring Biography for Young Readers, One Hen and Then . . . The Story of a Small Loan and a Big Dream, and others.