The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Picture book celebrates blackness
Recent Yale graduate AbdulRazak Zachariah, an advocate for diversity and inclusion at Yale, will mark publication of his new picture book with a launch event at 2 p.m. Sunday, July 14, at Yale University Bookstore, 77 Broadway in New Haven.
“The Night is Yours,” with illustrations by Keturah A. Bobo, is a children’s book that celebrates blackness, upends stereotypes about apartment complex communities and engages in a dialogue about every child’s right to feel safe in, and proud of, their home, says a publisher’s description.
The book, written as a senior project by Zachariah, presents a young girl named Amani (inspired by the author’s younger sister) who plays a nighttime game of hide and seek under the protective eye of her father.
A Kirkus review of the book online points out that the book’s lines of, “‘Show everyone else how to embrace the night like you. Teach them how to be a nightowning girl like you’ are as much an appeal for her to love and appreciate her dark skin as they are the exhortation for Amani to enjoy the night.”
When Zachariah wrote the book, he was also grappling with saying goodbye to theWest Haven apartment complex he grew up in, and the feelings of loss that came with it, according to the release from Penguin Young Readers. He is currently working in college student recruitment and community partnerships at New Haven literacy organization LEAP.
There also will be a storytime with the book and author at New Haven Public Library’sWilson Branch, 303Washington Ave. in New Haven, at 2 p.m. July 20.