This is a program created to give our youth the opportunity and space to discuss relevant topics and issues such as non-violence, peace, decision-making skills, and resilience.

One Book Baltimore’s broad group of local community-oriented organizations will connect students and community members to increase student discourse to develop actions toward peace and anti-violence through schools, libraries, and other community spaces, with the dual goals of promoting literacy and enriching our community.

This initiative is made possible through the efforts and contributions of Baltimore City Public Schools, Baltimore Ceasefire, the Enoch Pratt Free Library, the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, Johns Hopkins University, Arts & Minds Labs, Maryland Humanities, and the T. Rowe Price Foundation. These efforts are further supported and amplified by the partnerships with Barnes and Nobel, the Maryland Book Bank, CityLit Project, and others.

There’s something not right about ZJ’s dad these days. He’s always been a great guy – Pro Football Player, star tight end, great father and ZJ’s hero. But now, things are different. And thanks to ZJ’s friends, he doesn’t have to figure stuff out on his own.

Where it takes place:

Maplewood, New Jersey

Where I wrote it:

In Park Slope, Brooklyn, Brewster, NY and while I was traveling around the country talking about writing.

Why I wrote it:

You know – I think I thought I was writing Before The Ever After to talk about head injuries and loss. But in the end, it became a book about friendship and family and love. So I guess I wrote because that’s what I wanted to talk about here. ZJ has some really cool friends. It was so fun putting them on the page.

Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Woodson is an American writer of books for adults, children, and adolescents. She is best known for her National Book Award-Winning memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, and her Newbery Honor-winning titles After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way. Her picture books The Day You Begin and The Year We Learned to Fly were NY Times Bestsellers. After serving as the Young People’s Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017, she was named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress for 2018–19. She was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 2020. Later that same year, she was named a MacArthur Fellow.