Read Your World Celebrates Black History Month

February 1, 2026

Black History Month

This February, as we celebrate Black History Month, Read Your World is honored to spotlight the stories, voices, and contributions of Black authors and communities around the world. Black History Month invites us to reflect, learn, and uplift the rich cultural narratives that shape our collective human experience—through books, meaningful conversations, and shared connection.

We invite you to join us for our very first Read Your World Celebrates Black History Month virtual event. Creating this space feels both important and long overdue. Amplifying diverse stories has always been central to our mission, and this event offers a powerful opportunity to intentionally come together to honor and celebrate Black authors.

Event Registration

Feb 17, 2026 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Click here to register or click on the image below:

Guest Panelists

Deedee Cummings

Deedee Cummings is a professional dreamer. She is also an author, therapist, attorney, and mom from Louisville, Kentucky. Cummings founded Make A Way Media in 2014 after struggling to find books with characters who looked like her own children and an extreme lack of stories that reflected their life experiences. Books published by Make A Way focus on hope, diversity, social justice, and therapeutic skills for children and adults. Her work has been featured in HuffPost, Forbes, NPR, USA Today, Essence Magazine, Psych Central, Well+Good, and The EveryGirl, among other media outlets. In 2021, she was appointed to the Kentucky Early Childhood Advisory Council by Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, and reappointed to a second term in 2025, acknowledging her decades long service to the children and families of Kentucky. Deedee is also the founder of The Louisville Book Festival. She was inspired to work to highlight and celebrate a culture of reading in her community after working as an in-home therapist and visiting homes of children who had no books. Cummings believes literacy is a fundamental human right. Her work highlights inspiring messages that remind us all it is never too late to begin again. In the fall of 2025, Deedee will release Hope In the Nick of Time—the third book in the highly popular In the Nick of Time series—inspired by what she calls a crisis of hope.

Tonya Duncan Ellis

Tonya Duncan Ellis is the author of SCBWI Crystal Kite Honor winning picture book, They Built Me for Freedom: The Story of Juneteenth and Houston’s Emancipation Park (HarperCollins) and the upcoming picture book Cookout Chemistry (Charlesbridge 2027). They Built Me for Freedom tells the history of Houston’s Emancipation Park, site of the first Juneteenth celebration. Cookout Chemistry is part of Charlesbridge Publishing’s STEAMWORKS series that features children of all backgrounds and abilities exploring science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math in playful stories.

Tonya is also author of the Sophie Washington children’s chapter book series; multicultural kid’s books that entertain, educate, and inspire. The award-winning Sophie Washington series presents modern-day middle school issues like dealing with bullies, managing social media and video games, fitting in, and handling peer pressure and that first crush, with a Texas twist. Each book teaches valuable lessons about friendship, responsibility, and being truthful that children of all ages and backgrounds can relate to. Also available in ebook and audiobook forms, this series is best for ages 8-12.

Nina Crews

Nina Crews is an award winning children’s book author and illustrator. Her first book, One Hot Summer Day, was published in 1995. Daughter of Donald Crews (Freight Train; Truck; Ten Black Dots; Shortcut ) and Ann Jonas (Crews) (Round Trip; The Quilt; Splash; Color Dance), she has followed in the “family business” creating picture books for young readers. Known for her distinctive photocollage style, Nina has put her camera aside to create digitally rendered and collaged illustrations in her latest projects.

Nina’s books include I’m Not Small, Not Done Yet: Shirley Chisholm’s Fight for Change, A Girl Like Me, The Neighborhood Mother Goose, Seeing Into Tomorrow: Haiku by Richard Wright, and Extraordinary Magic: The Storytelling Life of Virginia Hamilton. Her work has been recognized by the ALA Notable Committee, the Black Caucus of the ALA, The Horn Book, Junior Library Guild, NCTE, CCBC, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, Bank Street College of Education and many others. She is the recipient of the 2023 New York State Library Association’s Empire State Award.

Her newest books are Big Family Beach Day, a multigenerational celebration of summer and family traditions, and Liftoff! How the Apollo Moon Missions Made Alma Thomas’s Art Soar, a dual narrative that weaves together the story of the Apollo 10 mission with Alma’s process creating her painting, Snoopy Sees a Sunrise.

Nina is a member of SCBWI and The Author’s Guild. She is a graduate of Yale University, where she received a BA in art and participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program studio program for artists. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and son.

Nina is represented by Gallt & Zacker Literary Agency.

Lisa D. Brathwaite

Lisa D. Brathwaite is a purveyor of creative self-expression. She loves playing dress-up (still!), her family, finding herself in art spaces, and writing whatever suits her in a given moment. Miles of Style: Eunice W. Johnson and the EBONY Fashion Fair is her debut children’s book. Lisa studied family and community development at the University of Maryland at College Park, graduating with a degree in Community Studies and a concentration in public policy and the Black community. She is a New Jersey native and has been designing her adult life in Atlanta, GA. Find out more at lisadbrathwaite.com.

Book Bundle Giveaway

We will be giving away books during our live event! Stay tuned for the titles.

February Instagram Live

We kicked off Black History Month a day early on our IG Live Series with London Ladd. Click on the image to catch the replay on YouTube.

Black History Month Resources

Picture Books to Read to Celebrate Black History Month

Black History Month | Resources

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