Expanding the Foundation

Steven T. Bickmore is an Associate professor of English Education at UNLV and maintains a weekly academic blog on YA literature (http://www.yawednesday.com/). He is a past editor of The ALAN Review (2009-2014) and a founding editor of Study and Scrutiny: Research in Young Adult Literature. Shanetia P. Clark, PhD is an associate professor of literacy in the Department of Early and Elementary Education at Salisbury University in Salisbury, Maryland. Her interests include young adult and children's literature, the exploration of aesthetic experiences within reading and writing classrooms, and writing pedagogy.

• Foreword by Nancy TolsonAcknowledgements Introduction-Steven T. Bickmore and Shanetia P. Clark THE FEATURED AFRICAN AMERICAN AUTHORS “We’re All Just People Here”: Freedom, Hope, and Migration in Brown Girl DreamingKaaVonia Hinton2. Coming of Age and Confronting Sexual Identity in Jacqueline Woodson’s From The Notebooks of Melanin SunTammy Szafranski and Steven T. Bickmore3. A Life Revealed: Angela Johnson’s The First Part Last and the Transformation of the Personal NarrativeMatt Skillen4. Nikki Grimes: Poet, Writer, Advocate, and Creative Spirit Mary Napoli and Barbara Ward5.Nikki Grimes: Poetry as MemiorMary Napoli and Barbara Ward6. Constructing Understanding Through Advocacy: A critical Disability Studies Perspective on Sharon draper’s Out of My Mind Katie Caprino and Tara Anderson Gold 7. History, Memory, and Family Stories in Sharon Draper’s Stella by StarlightMorgan Jackson and Steven T. Bickmore8. An Examinatin of Who We are through Historical Fiction: Using ChristopherPaul Curtis’ The Journey of Little Charlie as a Magnifying GlassShanetia P. Clark9.Finding and Accepting Oneself through Sharon G. Flake’s The Skin I’m In Steven T. Bickmore and Tammy Szafranski10. Narrating the Extraordinary Everydayness of Black Adolescents through the Works of Rita Williams-Garcia Roberta Price Gardner11. Jewel Parker Rhodes: Towers Falling, Hope RisingRegina S. Carter, Bethany B. Mickel, and Felicia Moore

Joining the editors' On the Shoulders of Giants (2019), this second volume in what will be a three-volume set explores eight authors writing between 1980 and 2000: Rita Williams-Garcia, Jacqueline Woodson, Angela Johnson, Nikki Grimes, Sharon Draper, Christopher Paul Curtis, Sharon G. Flake, and Jewel Parker Rhodes (Woodson, Grimes, and Draper get two essays each; the others get one). Each essay begins with a brief backstory on the author; goes on to provide a critical discussion of the author's work and instructional activities for individual, small group, and whole group settings; and concludes with a select bibliography, awards, scholarly works, and references on the author. The book's greatest strength is the contributors' skill at tailoring the instructional activities for application with other works of the author as well as other authors' works. Chapter 2, "Coming of Age and Confronting Sexual Identity” is outstanding with its suggestions for before, during, and after reading, as it offers practicing teachers wishing to include diverse authors in their classrooms unique ideas for classroom practice. This book will be invaluable, particularly for teachers with limited knowledge of African American authors of the period. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, professionals.