Thursday, February 26, 2009

UNCG Honors Children’s Book Writer … With Jazz!



Press Release by Michelle Hines
2-26-09

Carole Boston Weatherford writes about jazz. Her recent books for kids include “Becoming Billie Holiday” and “Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane.”

Now Boston Weatherford, a University of North Carolina at Greensboro alumna who has given her papers to UNCG’s Jackson Library, is being honored by her alma mater during Cool Jazz Family Day, Saturday, March 28.

Cool Jazz festivities run from 1-4 p.m. at UNCG’s Weatherspoon Art Museum.

Boston Weatherford will read from her books and talk about her writing beginning at 2 p.m. in the Weatherspoon Auditorium. She will sign books afterwards in the museum’s atrium.

A quartet from the UNCG Jazz Band will perform in her honor at 3 p.m.

Boston Weatherford, a Baltimore native, wrote her first poem in first grade. She has written more than 20 books, including “Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom,” winner of a Caldecott Honor, the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration and an NAACP Image Award.

Her papers, which she recently began transferring to Jackson Library, include manuscripts, proofs, clippings, photographs and cd’s. The collection supplements existing collections on youth literature, alumni authors, creative writing and African-American women.

Boston Weatherford teaches at Fayetteville State University. She lives in High Point with her husband, Ronald, and a college-age son and daughter.

The UNCG University Libraries and the Weatherspoon Art Museum are co-sponsoring the Boston Weatherford celebration.

No comments: