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Cool Brains! Inprint Readings for Young People

Inprint Cool Brains! Jacqueline Woodson Livestream Event

Sunday June 27, 2021 4:00 pm

Please note that this livestream event will be viewable directly on the Inprint website. The link to view the reading will be provided to those that order a free ticket in the ticket receipt from Eventbrite. 

Inprint invites you to a free live virtual event featuring four-time Newbery Honor winner Jacqueline Woodson. Jacqueline will give a presentation about her new novel, Before the Ever After, and then respond to video messages/questions submitted by kids. The event will also include a special performance by the Houston Poet Laureate Outspoken Bean and the Meta-Four Houston Youth Slam Team.

BOOK DISCOUNTS: Order a copy of Before the Ever After from our partners at Blue Willow Bookshop and receive a 10% discount. To receive the discount, order the book here and use the coupon code EVERAFTER.

Hey kids, send in short video messages/questions for Jacqueline Woodson to be included in the live event!

Kids who send in a video will receive a free copy of Before the Ever After while supplies last.

Videos should be no longer than 30 seconds.
Videos can include a question for Jacqueline about her new novel Before the Ever After, about her life as a writer, or a general message about what her books mean to you.
Begin the video with your name, your school, and what grade you are in.
Select videos will be part of the live event for Jacqueline to see and respond to.

Send videos via email to info@inprinthouston.org by Wednesday, June 23, 12 pm CT.

JACQUELINE WOODSON is the critically-acclaimed author of more than 30 award-winning books for children, including After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way, and the adult novels Red at the Bone and Another Brooklyn. She is also the author of the National Book Award-winning middle-grade novel Brown Girl Dreaming, “a book full of poems that cry out to be learned by heart” (The New York Times Book Review). Among her many accolades, Woodson is a four-time Newbery Honor winner and a two-time Coretta Scott King Award winner. She was named the 2015 Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation, the 2018 Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress, and was selected for a 2020 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. According to the MacArthur Foundation, “Woodson gives diverse readers an opportunity to see themselves reflected in literature and encourages all readers to look beyond their own experience and see the beauty in other human beings.” Woodson was also the 2020 recipient of the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international recognition given to an author and illustrator of children’s books.

In her new novel-in-verse, Before the Ever After, Jacqueline explores how a family moves forward when their glory days have passed and the cost of professional sports on Black bodies. Even though he has a great group of friends and a talent for songwriting, twelve-year-old ZJ’s life quickly turns from charmed to tragic after his pro football player dad starts having trouble remembering things and seems to be angry all the time. When his mom explains that this is all happening because of the head injuries his father sustained during his sports career, ZJ must come to terms with the fact that his family is forever changed. According to a Kirkus starred review, Before the Ever After is “a poignant and achingly beautiful narrative that sheds light on the price of a violent sport.” Publishers Weekly adds, “ZJ’s doleful tale unveils the intense nostalgia and hope one can feel despite realizing that sometimes what is lost can never be regained.” Will ZJ and his family ever be happy again? Can ZJ and his close-knit community learn to live without a fairy-tale ending?

Jacqueline currently lives in Brooklyn, New York and has two kids, one cat, and three dogs. She can only write with her notebook turned sideways and has most of her books memorized so she doesn’t have to carry them around.