Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library - Hardcover

by Carole Boston Weatherford (Author), Eric Velasquez (Illustrator)

In luminous paintings and arresting poems, two of children's literature's top African-American scholars track Arturo Schomburg's quest to correct history.

Amid the scholars, poets, authors, and artists of the Harlem Renaissance stood an Afro-Puerto Rican named Arturo Schomburg. This law clerk's life's passion was to collect books, letters, music, and art from Africa and the African diaspora and bring to light the achievements of people of African descent through the ages. When Schomburg's collection became so big it began to overflow his house (and his wife threatened to mutiny), he turned to the New York Public Library, where he created and curated a collection that was the cornerstone of a new Negro Division. A century later, his groundbreaking collection, known as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, has become a beacon to scholars all over the world.

Author Biography

Carole Boston Weatherford, a New York Times best-selling author and poet, was named the 2025 Children's Literature Legacy Award winner. She was also named the 2019 Washington Post Children's Book Guild Nonfiction Award winner. Her numerous books for children include the Newbery Honor Book Box: Henry Box Brown Mails Himself to Freedom, illustrated by Michele Wood; the Coretta Scott King Author Award winner Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, illustrated by Floyd Cooper; the Robert F. Sibert Honor Book Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, illustrated by Ekua Holmes; and the critically acclaimed Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library and Outspoken: Paul Robeson, Ahead of His Time, both illustrated by Eric Velasquez. Carole Boston Weatherford lives in Maryland.

Eric Velasquez is the illustrator of numerous books for children, including several previous collaborations with Carole Boston Weatherford. He won the John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award for his illustrations of The Piano Man, written by Debbi Chocolate. Eric Velasquez is also the author-illustrator of the Pura Belpré Illustrator Award-winning Grandma's Gift. Born in Harlem, he lives and works in Hartsdale, New York.