St. Louis County Library Foundation’s Reading Garden Series for Young Audiences and The Novel Neighbor will host a 2025 Black History Celebration event with award-winning middle grade children’s book author Dr. Jewell Parker Rhodes. She will discuss and sign her latest historical novel for young readers, “Will’s Race for Home.”
“Reading historical fiction, you travel back in time into the past,” Rhodes said during a video interview with Kid & The Wolf. “And through your imagination – and the author’s characters – you get to experience it.”
Rhodes will be in conversation with Julius Anthony, president of St. Louis Black Authors of Children’s Literature and founder of The Believe Project.
The event will take place on Tuesday, January 14, 6:30 p.m. at the Clark Family Branch. Books will be available for purchase and signing from The Novel Neighbor.
With “Will’s Race for Home,” the bestselling and award-winning author goes West in a thrilling adventure story about a son and his father who set out to win land during the Oklahoma Land Rush–if they can survive the journey.
“Historical fiction stimulates your mind because you learn new things about history,” Rhodes said. “But it also stimulates your heart and it tells you a great story. We come up with new worlds and in a sense a new life to live.”
Will and his family are Black sharecroppers in Texas in 1888, where “sharecrop-ping isn’t much better than being enslaved.” When the land rush in Oklahoma is announced, twelve-year-old Will and his father set off to claim land for the family.
They set out on a journey from Texas to Oklahoma, racing thousands of others to the place where land is free—if they can get to it fast enough. But the journey isn’t easy—the terrain is rough, the bandits are brutal, and every interaction carries a heavy undercurrent of danger.
“Will’s Race for Home” was the 2024 selection of the Junior Library Guild. Rhodes is the author of several books for youth, including “Ghost Boys,” “Black Brother, Black Brother,” “Paradise on Fire,” and “Treasure Island: Runaway Gold.” She is the recipient of many distinguished awards and honors, including the Coretta Scott King Author Honor, the Green Earth Book Award, an NAACP Image Award nomination, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, and the Octavia E. Butler Award. Rhodes is the Founding Artistic Director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing and Virginia G. Piper Endowed Chair at Arizona State University.
“I’ve lived a thousand different lives through my imagination,” Rhodes said. “Sometimes when I’m writing, I feel it. I experience it. I feel as though I’ve learned about the past and that I’ve also learned about myself and I’m taking you [the reader] on the journey with me.”
The St. Louis County Library Foundation’s Reading Garden Series for Young Audiences and The Novel Neighbor 2025 Black History Celebration with Dr. Dr. Jewell Parker Rhodes will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 14th at the Clark Family Branch, 1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd, St. Louis MO 63131. For more information, visit www.slcl.org or call 314-994-3300.
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