About the Authors
Meg Medina is the author of The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind and the picture book Tía Isa Wants a Car, which won the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award. She is also a voice talent and audiobook narrator.
Rita Williams-Garcia is the author of the Newbery Honor–winning novel One Crazy Summer, which was also a winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, a National Book Award finalist, and winner of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. She is also the author of several other novels for young adults, including Jumped, a National Book Award finalist; Every Time a Rainbow Dies, a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book; Fast Talk on a Slow Track, an ALA Best Books for Young Adults; and Like Sisters on the Homefront, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. She is on the faculty at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in the program for writing for children and young adults.
Andrea Davis Pinkney, the award-winning author of numerous books for children and young adults, has been recognized by the Coretta Scott King Author Award committee with an honor for Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters and a medal for Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America. She is a four-time nominee for the NAACP Image Award. In addition to her work as an author, she is a publishing executive. She has been named one of the “25 Most Influential Black Women in Business” by the Network Journal and is among Children’s Health magazine’s “25 Most Influential People in Our Children's Lives.”
Kekla Magoon is the Margaret A. Edwards Award-winning author of more than a dozen books for young readers. Revolution in Our Time was shortlisted for the National Book Award and The Rock and the River won the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award. She is also the coauthor, with Ilyasah Shabazz, of X: A Novel, which was long-listed for the National Book Award and received an NAACP Image Award and a Coretta Scott King Honor. She serves on the faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Lesa Cline-Ransome is an award-winning author and editor who has written more than ten picture books for children, including two ALA Notable books. A graduate of the Pratt Institute, she holds a Master’s degree in early childhood and elementary education from New York University.
Atia Abawi is the critically acclaimed author of The Secret Sky and A Land of Permanent Goodbyes. She is a foreign news correspondent who was stationed for almost five years in Kabul, Afghanistan. She was born to Afghan parents in West Germany and was raised in the United States. She was born to Afghan parents in West Germany and was raised in the United States.
Michelle Knudsen is
the author of The Dragon of Trelian and
The Princess of Trelian, as well as
the bestselling picture book Library
Lion, Argus, and Big Mean Mike.
Michelle lives in Brooklyn.
Chelsea Clinton is the author of It’s Your World: Get Informed, Get Inspired & Get Going! and, with Devi Sridhar, Governing Global Health: Who Runs the World and Why? She is also the vice chairperson of the Clinton Foundation where she works on many initiatives, including those that help to empower the next generation of leaders. She lives in New York City with her family.
Sayantani DasGupta grew up hearing stories about brave princesses, bloodthirsty rakkhosh, and flying pakkhiraj horses. She is a pediatrician by training but spends most of her time teaching undergraduates and graduate students at Columbia University. When she’s not writing, Sayantani spends time with her family and is a team member of We Need Diverse Books.
About the Narrators
Bahni Turpin, winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and several prestigious Audie Awards for her narrations, was named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine in 2019. Publishers Weekly magazine named her Narrator of the Year for 2016. She is an ensemble member of the Cornerstone Theater Company in Los Angeles. She has guest starred in many television series, including NYPD Blue, Law & Order, Six Feet Under, Cold Case, What about Brian, and The Comeback. Film credits include Brokedown Palace, Crossroads, and Daughters of the Dust. She is also a member of the recording cast of The Help, which won numerous awards.
Janina Edwards, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, is a native of Chicago and a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts acting program. Her 2016 performance of Voice of Freedom was a finalist for the Audie Award.
Tavia Gilbert is an acclaimed narrator of more than four hundred full-cast and multivoice audiobooks for virtually every publisher in the industry. Named the 2018 Voice of Choice by Booklist magazine, she is also winner of the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. She has earned numerous Earphones Awards, a Voice Arts Award, and a Listen-Up Award. Audible.com has named her a Genre-Defining Narrator: Master of Memoir. In addition to voice acting, she is an accomplished producer, singer, and theater actor. She is also a producer, singer, photographer, and a writer, as well as the cofounder of a feminist publishing company, Animal Mineral.
Fred Sanders, an actor and Earphones Award–winning narrator, has received critics’ praise for his audio narrations that range from nonfiction, memoir, and fiction to mystery and suspense. He been seen on Broadway in The Buddy Holly Story, in national tours for Driving Miss Daisy and Big River, and on such television shows as Seinfeld, The West Wing, Will and Grace, Numb3rs,Titus, and Malcolm in the Middle. His films include Sea of Love, The Shadow, and the Oscar-nominated short Culture. He is a native New Yorker and Yale graduate.