Photo by Mark Mattos
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On September 20, Daniel Minter and Sonya Clark launched this year’s Beautiful Blackbird Children’s Book Festival with a conversation about the picture book And She Was Loved: Toni Morrison’s Life in Stories, written by Andrea Davis Pinkney and illustrated by Daniel Minter. Daniel Minter is an acclaimed American artist whose themes often focus on experiences of displacement and diaspora. Sonya Clark is an artist and the Winifred Arms Professor of Arts at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Andrea Davis Pinkney has written many books for children and young adults. Her inspiration is African American culture. The conversation honored the legacy of Toni Morrison and was held at the Indigo Arts Alliance Studio in Portland.
The Beautiful Blackbird Children’s Book Festival was founded in 2020 by Indigo Arts Alliance, in partnership with I’m Your Neighbor Books and Diverse BookFinder. The festival celebrates Black and Black Immigrant children’s books and their creators with an annual 3,000-plus book giveaway to Maine families, as well as the production of media and activities and live book events. The festival’s was named after Beautiful Blackbird, a picture book by celebrated Black children’s book creator and artist Ashley Bryan, whose work as an illustrator centered on the African diaspora.
This year’s festival takes place in three cities. Programming at the Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine in Portland took place on September 28. On October 1 and October 7 programming continues at the Lewiston Public Library, with an October 1 performance and an October 7 art activity. On October 4, the picture book Kende! Kende! Kende! is performed in Arabic, English, French, Kinyarwanda, Lingala, Portuguese, and Swahili in Auburn’s Festival Plaza. The book was co-created in Lewiston/Auburn and Portland by community members from Angola, Burundi, Congo Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, and Rwanda. The event includes unveiling a storywalk.
