In commemoration of Black History Month, we'll be featuring articles, speeches, interviews, and reviews from The Horn Book's past year that are by and/or about African American authors, illustrators, and luminaries in the field — one a weekday through the month of February.

Last Monday's ALA Youth Media Awards announcement saw a Caldecott honor for C. G. Esperanza for My Daddy Is a Cowboy, which also won the CSK Illustrator Award (and it was a Horn Book Fanfare 2024 title!). And speaking of the CSK Awards, we're starting off the month with Carole Boston Weatherford and Jeffery Boston Weatherford's original found poem, "Black Means: Roll Call & Rap," of Coretta Scott King Award and Honor Book titles for three voices, which they performed at the Coretta Scott King Book Awards Round Table's 55th Anniversary Celebration on June 28, 2024, and which we included in the January/February issue of the Horn Book Magazine.

Check back here to follow along each day/week and look for the social media tag #HBBlackHistoryMonth on Facebook (@TheHornBook) and Bluesky (@thehornbook.bsky.social). Be sure to also follow The Brown Bookshelf's "28 Days Later" initiative ("designed to celebrate Black children’s book creators and raise awareness of those who may be under the radar of librarians, educators and families"), and on Bluesky (@thebrownbookshelf.bsky.social).

Week 1

2/3: Carole Boston Weatherford and Jeffery Boston Weatherford's poem "Black Means: Roll Call & Rap" from the January/February 2025 Horn Book Magazine

2/4: Vashti Harrison's Caldecott acceptance for Big plus a profile of her, from the July/August 2024 Horn Book Magazine Special Issue: ALA Awards

2/5: Ibi Zoboi's CSK Author Award acceptance for Nigeria Jones plus a profile of her, from the July/August 2024 Horn Book Magazine Special Issue: ALA Awards

2/6: Dare Coulter's CSK Illustrator Award acceptance speech for An American Story plus two profiles of her, from the July/August 2024 Horn Book Magazine Special Issue: ALA Awards

2/7: Christopher Paul Curtis's CSK–Virginia Hamilton Award acceptance speech, from the July/August 2024 Horn Book Magazine Special Issue: ALA Awards

Week 2

2/10: Talks with Roger: Kwame Mbalia | Leslé Honoré | Carole Boston Weatherford

2/11: Dianne Johnson-Feelings (aka Dinah Johnson) and Jonda C. McNair's "100 Years Old and Still Relevant: A Conversation About The Brownies' Book" from the January/February 2025 Horn Book Magazine

2/12: Five questions for Jason Reynolds about Twenty-Four Seconds from Now... and "Black excellence" from January 2025 Notes from the Horn Book

2/13: Alice Faye Duncan's "The Writer's Page: Born in Babylon: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants" from the May/June 2024 Horn Book Magazine Special Issue: Our Centennial

2/14: Kristen Joy Emack's "'Reimagin[ing] Familiar Stories with Different Faces'" from the March/April 2024 Horn Book Magazine

Week 3

2/17: Original poems by Marilyn Nelson ("Better Ask Somebody Else." from the March/April 2024 Horn Book Magazine) and by Nikki Giovanni ("Tomorrow" from the November/December 2024 Horn Book Magazine)

2/18: Sujei Lugo's "'With a Salute to All Children's Librarians': Amplifying the Work of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color" from the May/June 2024 Horn Book Magazine Special Issue: Our Centennial

2/19: Five questions for Renée Watson and Ekua Holmes about Black Girl You Are Atlas from March 2024 Notes from the Horn Book and Five questions for Tracey Baptiste about Boy 2.0 from October 2024 Notes from the Horn Book

2/20: Claudette S. McLinn's Horn Book Reminiscence "A Full-Circle Moment" from the September/October 2024 Horn Book Magazine

2/21: Kekla Magoon and Cynthia Leitich Smith's Writers' Page "The Heroes Inside Us: Fighting for Truth, Justice, and the Right to Share Our Stories" from the September/October 2024 Horn Book Magazine

Week 4

2/24: Gary R. Gray Jr.'s acceptance speech and Oge Mora's acceptance speech for 2024 BGHB Picture Book Honor book I'm From from the January/February 2025 Horn Book Magazine

2/25: Jacqueline Woodson's acceptance speech for 2024 BGHB Fiction winner Remember Us from the January/February 2025 Horn Book Magazine

2/26: "Blowing the Horn" contributions by Rita Williams-Garcia, Autumn Allen, Lesa Cline-Ransome, James E. Ransome, Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, Frank Morrison, and Andrea Davis Pinkney from the May/June 2024 Horn Book Magazine Special Issue: Our Centennial

2/27: Carole Boston Weatherford's acceptance speech and Jeffery Boston Weatherford's acceptance speech for 2024 BGHB Poetry winner Kin from the January/February 2025 Horn Book Magazine

2/28: Karida L. Brown and Charly Palmer's acceptance speech for 2024 BGHB Special Citation The New Brownies' Book from the January/February 2025 Horn Book Magazine

Click the tag HBBlackHistoryMonth25 for more articles in this series.