We Need Diverse Books with Dr. Janay Brown-Wood

JaNay Brown-Wood, PhD, is an award-winning children’s author, poet, educator, and scholar. Her first children’s book Imani’s Moon, won the NAESP Children’s Book of the Year Award and was featured on Stephen Colbert’s, The Late Show and Storytime with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her second book Grandma’s Tiny House: A Counting Story! received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly and won the CELI Read Aloud Book Award. JaNay also has several poems published in Highlights for Kids, Highlights High Five, the poetry anthology Thanku: Poems of Gratitude (Lerner/Millbrook, 2019) and the forthcoming anthology No World Too Big (Charlesbridge, 2023). 

JaNay is also the author of the popular picture book series, Where in the Garden (Peachtree Publishing), four Chicken Soup for the Soul Babies/Kids books, Crayola’s Follow That Line! Magic at Your Fingertips (Kids Can Press, 2022), and the New York Times Bestselling book, Why Not You? (Penguin/Random House), which she collaborated with Ciara and Russel Wilson. She has many more books both published and in the pipeline including a series of chapter books called Love Puppies (forthcoming/Scholastic). You can learn more about her at www.janaybrownwood.com