Carole Boston Weatherford

Carole Boston Weatherford photo

Carole Boston Weatherford is a Top 100 AALBC.com Bestselling Author Making Our List 13 Times

Carole Boston Weatherford is the New York Times best-selling author of three Caldecott Honor books: Freedom in Congo Square, Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, and Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom. A two-time NAACP Image Award recipient, Carole has the soul of a poet and the heart of a historian. Family stories, fading traditions and forgotten struggles inform her poetry, nonfiction, historical fiction and biographies. She has spotlighted not only legends like Billie Holiday and John Coltrane but also lesser known historical figures such as Harlem Renaissance bibliophile Arturo Schomburg. Nowadays, she collaborates with her son, illustrator and poet Jeffery Weatherford, on book like You Can Fly: The Tuskegee Airmen.

Carole believes that poetry makes music with words and she often writes about musical subjects from jazz and gospel to R&B and rap. Her recent releases include: The Legendary Miss Lena Horne; The Roots of Rap: 16 Bars on the 4 Pillars of Hip Hop; By and By: Charles Albert Tindley, the Father of Gospel Music; and R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul.

A Fayetteville State University professor, Carole lives in High Point, North Carolina.

Among her 50-Plus Books are These Award Winners:


Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library

  • SCBWI Golden Kite
  • We Need Diverse Books Walter Award
  • Jefferson Cup Honor
  • ALSC Notables

The Legendary Miss Lena Horne

  • Arnold Adoff Early Poetry Award

You Can Fly: The Tuskegee Airmen

  • ALSC Notables

Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America

  • NAACP Image Award

Freedom in Congo Square

  • Caldecott Honor
  • Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor
  • Charlotte Zolotow Award

Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement

  • Caldecott Honor
  • Robert Sibert Honor
  • Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor
  • Arnold Adoff Young Adult Poetry Honor

Sugar Hill: Harlem’s Historic Neighborhood

  • Arnold Adoff Early Poetry Honor

Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom

  • Caldecott Honor Medal
  • Coretta Scott King Award for illustration
  • NAACP Image Award

Becoming Billie Holiday

  • Coretta Scott King Author Honor

Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane

  • Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor
  • SCBWI Golden Kite Honor

Dear Mr. Rosenwald

  • SCBWI Golden Kite Honor

Birmingham, 1963

  • Jefferson Cup, Virginia Library Association
  • Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award
  • Jane Addams Children’s Literature Honor

The Sound that Jazz Makes