ONLINE: Carole Boston Weatherford

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Gerald Young

Carole Boston Weatherford has written many books for younger readers.

A Room of One’s Own hosts a virtual event with Carole Boston Weatherford, an award-winning author of books for kids and young adults, who will discuss a pair of works about 20th century cultural icons with Cooperative Children's Book Center librarian Megan Schliesman. In the verse novel Beauty Mark, Weatherford follows Marilyn Monroe’s deeply challenging childhood, and how her rise to fame was accompanied by a slew of new hardships. Becoming Billie Holiday is a poetry collection about the life of the legendary singer, who also faced many life challenges. RSVP for a link to the Crowdcast livestream.

press release: A Room of One's Own welcomes Carole Weatherford, award-winning author of Beauty Mark and Becoming Billie Holiday, for a conversation on Crowdcast with Cooperative Children's Book Center librarian Megan Schliesman! This event's date reflects two pieces of history: Marilyn Monroe's birthday and the day Billie Holiday recorded her songs "Easy Living," "I'll Never Be the Same," and "Foolin' Myself." 

About Beauty Mark: From the day she was born into a troubled home to her reigning days as a Hollywood icon, Marilyn Monroe lived a life that was often defined by others. Here, in a first-person poetic narrative, Carole Boston Weatherford tells Marilyn's story in a way that restores her voice to its rightful place: center stage. Revisiting Marilyn's often traumatic early life--foster homes, loneliness, sexual abuse, teen marriage--through a hard-won, meteoric rise to stardom that brought with it exploitation, pill dependency, and depression, the lyrical narrative continues through Marilyn's famous performance at JFK's birthday party, three months before her death.

About Becoming Billie Holiday: Before the legend of Billie Holiday, there was a girl named Eleanora. Eleanora's journey into legend took her through pain, poverty, and run-ins with the law. By the time she was fifteen, she knew she possessed something that could possibly change her life--a voice. Her remarkable voice led her to a place in the spotlight with some of the era's hottest big bands. Billie Holiday sang as if she had lived each lyric, and in many ways she had. Through a sequence of raw and poignant poems, award-winning poet Carole Boston Weatherford chronicles Eleanora Fagan's metamorphosis into Billie Holiday. The author examines the singer's young life, her fight for survival, and the dream she pursued with passion in this Coretta Scott King Author Honor winner. With stunning art by Floyd Cooper, this book provides a revealing look at a cultural icon.

Carole Boston Weatherford has authored over 60 books, including the Newbery Honor book BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom and three Caldecott Honor winners: Freedom in Congo Square, Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, and Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom. Among her other titles are R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, Dreams for a Daughter, The Roots of Rap: 16 Bars on the 4 Pillars of Hip Hop, and Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre. The two-time NAACP Image Award teaches at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina.