Lesa Cline-Ransome (2021)

Lesa Cline-Ransome’s first book was the biography Satchel Paige, an ALA Notable Book and a Bank Street College “Best Children’s Book of the Year. She later created Major Taylor: Champion Cyclist, Young Pele, Words Set Me Free, Just a Lucky So and So: The Story of Louis Armstrong and Germs: Fact and Fiction, Friends and Foes, Game Changers: The Story of Venus and Serena Williams, The Power of Her Pen: The Story of Groundbreaking Journalist Ethel Payne, Not Playing by the Rules: 21 Female Athletes Who Changed Sports and Overground Railroad. Her verse biography of Harriet Tubman, Before She Was Harriet received five starred reviews, was nominated for an NAACP image award, and received a Coretta Scott King Honor for Illustration.

Her debut middle grade novel, Finding Langston, was the 2019 winner of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction and received the Coretta Scott King Award Author Honor. The sequel, Leaving Lymon released in Spring 2020. Her other honors and awards include NAACP Awards, Kirkus Best Books, ALA Notable, CBC Choice Awards, two Top 10 Sports Books for Youth, and an Orbis Pictus Recommended Book.