Since 2005, more than 15,000 Sacramento-area school children have
benefited from Words Take Wing: Honoring Diversity in Children’s
Literature. This annual celebration, held each February, gives
students the opportunity to hear about the personal journeys and
creative processes of acclaimed authors and illustrators of
diverse children’s literature whose stories about Native American
heritage, Asian culture, African American culture, and Latino
identity, among many others, allow them to explore a wide range
of perspectives and world views.
On February 23, 2021, Words Take
Wing hosted award-winning children’s author Lesa Cline-Ransome in
a virtual version of our traditional matinee.
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.
Sutter Health is a proud sponsor
of Words Take Wing.
