About
Wade Hudson is an award-winning author, CEO and co-founder of Just Us Books, one of the nation's leading independent children’s book publishers. Wade’s career in publishing spans four decades. He has written more than 30 books including: Book of Black Heroes From A to Z; Poetry from the Masters: The Pioneers; Jamal's Busy Day, and Powerful Words: More than Two Hundred Years of Extraordinary Writing by African Americans. He is co-editor with Cheryl of three anthologies published in partnership with Crown Books for Young Readers, including: The Talk: Conversations About Race, Love & Truth and Recognize! An Anthology Honoring and Amplifying Black Life. He wrote a collection of poetry, Journey, which was published by Third World Press. His most recent books include, the coming-of-age memoir, Defiant: Growing up in the Jim Crow South, which Kirkus Reviews called a “powerful testimony from a children’s literature legend,” and which won the 2022 Malka Penn Award for Human Rights in Children’s Literature. His newest titles are the picture book Invincible: Fathers and Mothers of Black America, The Day Madear Voted and the middle grade novel, The Reckoning.
Featured Work
The Day Madear Voted
* “Hudson and Tate combine their formidable talents to bring to young readers the historical context of the hard-won rights of Black people to vote. Tate’s sepia-toned illustrations identify scenes of voting in 1969 as “longer-ago” history as the young male narrator recalls his mother’s first time voting in the South after a lifetime of Jim Crow deprivations in Louisiana. The palette becomes enlivened by brighter primary colors as history moves through the 2008 election and into the present day; these beautifully convey Madear’s feelings of joy and collective empowerment. Hudson, known for his prolific and dedicated lifetime of work ensuring that Black children can see themselves in books and that history is preserved and told in the most engaging ways possible for young readers, adds an author’s note summarizing the larger historical context of the narration. Keeping pace is Tate, who movingly shares in an illustrator’s note that details his familial connections to the story, making this picture book a useful one for older elementary students as well as those in middle school and high school working with picture books. This timely and timeless selection is a perfect fit for every school library.”
