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Caroline Brewer Author · Artist · Literacy Advocate

Author: Caroline Brewer

  • SAY THEIR NAMES – FREE Guide for Parents, Teachers, Youth Leaders

    SAY THEIR NAMES – FREE Guide for Parents, Teachers, Youth Leaders

    AUTHOR CREATES SAY THEIR NAMES
    IMAGINATION GUIDE

     

    NEW picture book offers many gifts,
    including a Positive Identity

    Author Caroline Brewer is leading highly inter-active and musical conversations with students, educators, parents and community groups about her new book  Say Their Names, with Reycraft Books.  In Say Their Names, a fictional 7-year-old Aliya responds to the aftermath of George Floyd’s death with poetry, history, and an invitation to a love-inspired future. Brewer says the book comes with more than 30 “gifts” for children, such as hope, courage, and empowerment, which all work together to form a positive identity. (See page 5 for the list and student-youth engagement opportunities).

    “As we have seen, especially since September 11, 2001, traumatic incidents, such as school shootings, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, racist and religious attacks, wars, pandemics, and the like, keep happening, seemingly with greater frequency, here and all over the world,” said Brewer, “In the face of the world’s ugliness, we’ll be counting on today’s youth to one day stand tall and lead our families, communities, and countries. So it’s critical that we – and they — are equipped with the confidence, language, empathy, mental and emotional stamina to handle the hard stuff. If I could give a child any gift, it would be the gift of a positive identity, and that’s what Say Their Names is all about,” says Brewer.

    **
    Goals of the picture book, Say Their Names: To be a channel for children’s agency, positive identity, strength, intellectual stimulation, healthy, self-actualized communication, to expand supportive communities, to be a source of hope, and a tool for imagining ways forward.

    Click here to get your FREE Imagination Guide!

     

  • Midwest Stop – Say Their Names – Four Events in Three Days!

    Midwest Stop – Say Their Names – Four Events in Three Days!

    WE’RE CELEBRATING THE LAUNCH OF SAY THEIR NAMES
    and DARIUS DANIELS: GAME ON!
    IN THE MIDWEST
    At three Fort Wayne, Indiana locations, November 25, 26, and 27 — Join Us!
    FRIDAY, NOV. 25 – 4-6 pm – Family Event- Invitation-Only Event – Contact Joanne or Liz for details.
    SATURDAY, NOV. 26 – 11 am – 12 noon —Brief talk and autograph session for Say Their Names and Darius Daniels: Game On!

    BIPOC Business Weekend, sponsored by Clydia Early.
    3402 Fairfield Ave, Fort Wayne, IN 46807-1823

    SATURDAY, NOV. 26 – 2 pm – 5 pm —Bring the children for an inter-active musical presentation of
    Say Their Names and Darius Daniels: Game On!, plus powerful writing activity, Q & A, and autographing session. Refreshments will be available for purchase during our break.

    BIPOC Business Weekend
    3402 Fairfield Ave, Fort Wayne, IN 46807-1823

    PLEASE ORDER YOUR BOOKS IN ADVANCE TODAYfrom websites or stores below or Amazon.

    EMAIL poadec.comm@gmail.com for more details on Saturday’s events – Sponsored by the People of African Descent Elders Council

    SUNDAY, NOV. 27 – 10:30 am – UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH, 5310 Old Mill Rd, Fort Wayne, IN 46807 – Delivering the morning’s sermon: Why We Say Their Names, followed by Q and A, and book-signing.

    READ The Washington Post’s feature story here!

    Watch television news coverage of

    Say Their Names here!

    Photo courtesy of MF Photography

  • SAY THEIR NAMES DMV LAUNCH EVENTS NOV. 5, 2022

    SAY THEIR NAMES DMV LAUNCH EVENTS NOV. 5, 2022

    WE’RE CELEBRATING THE LAUNCH OF SAY THEIR NAMES IN THE DMV
    At two locations, November 5 — Join US!
    1 pm – 2 pm — Say Their Names * Potter’s House Cafe/Bookstore — I’ll do an inter-active, musical reading
    of Say Their Names, Q & A, and autograph books. 
    Potter’s House, www.pottershousedc.org, 1658 Columbia Road NW WASHINGTON, DC, 20009
    5 pm – 6 pm – Say Their Names * Mahogany Books
    I’ll do an inter-active, musical reading of Say Their Names, Q & A, and autograph books.
    1231 Good Hope Rd., S.E. Washington, DC 20020 * Phone: 1 (844) 279-6239
    PLEASE RSVP TO caroline@carolinebrewerbooks.com
    Watch new coverage of Say Their Names here!
  • ‘Say Their Names’ Is a Tool for Imagining New Ways Forward

    ‘Say Their Names’ Is a Tool for Imagining New Ways Forward

    ‘Say Their Names’ Is a Tool for Imagining New Ways Forward

    News Alert – August 22, 2022

    Contact Caroline Brewer, caroline@carolinebrewerbooks.com for review copies and links to photos and video or Allison Lambert, alambert@benchmarkeducation.com, Marketing Manager for review copies and marketing information

    Washington, D.C. – Reycraft Books and D.C. Author Caroline Brewer announced the August 22, 2022 release of a new 24-page picture book* conceived on Black Lives Matter Plaza, in front of the White House, and written from a child’s perspective.

    In Say Their Names, 7-year-old Aliya responds to the aftermath of George Floyd’s death with poetry, history, and an invitation to a love-inspired future.  “We love this book!,” says Reycraft Editor Eileen Robinson. “We have not seen anything like it. It’s a fresh take on this movement, and we believe it’s going to spark the kinds of conversations – and actions — that our world needs now…And if you ever have the honor of hearing a live reading of Say Their Names, be prepared, it will electrify your soul.”

    Brewer, who became active in promoting solutions to police and racial violence after the son of one of her closest friends was killed by police in 2003, says the book is a meditation, a mini-dissertation, and a tool for tapping into our imaginations to find new ways forward. The story came to her after a June 2020 visit to Black Lives Matter Plaza, in the shadow of the White House, just minutes from her home.

    “After I arrived at Black Lives Matter Plaza, I started to meditate on everything that surrounded me – the people, the posters, the artwork, the boarded-up buildings, and the black iron fence barring people from getting close to the White House. I took pictures and went home, planning to do short social media posts. But, instead, a poem came out, and soon I heard the voice of a child,” said Brewer, a literacy consultant, former teacher, and former journalist. “When Aliya spoke, she kept saying ‘Imagine. Imagine.’ So, in Say Their Names, Aliya invites us to consider the technologies that humankind has imagined to make life more convenient and entertaining. And she invites us to consider the technology of imagination to make human engagement non-violent.”

    Brewer added that the child in this story helps remind us that police and racial violence have impacts on children. Indeed, some of the victims in recent years have been children, such as Aiyana Stanley-Jones and Tamir Rice. The child’s voice in this story helps remind us that it’s critical that adults help children process these events and invite them into conversations to imagine ways forward that heal and unite us. The leadership presence of the child in Say Their Names also reminds us of the roles that children have played in social justice movements. There were yesterday’s young civil rights leaders, such as then-6-year-old Ruby Bridges and the teens of the Little Rock Nine. In 2012, we had Malala Yousafzai, of Pakistan, raising her voice, and there are today’s climate leaders, such as Jerome Foster II, of D.C., and Greta Thunberg, of Sweden.

    ##

    Say Their Names is now available for ordering at all bookstores and Reycraft Books.

    Learn more about Reycraft Books and Caroline Brewer via these sites:

    www.carolinebrewerbooks.com * facebook.com/carolinebrewerbooks * twitter.com/brewercaroline

    instagram.com/carolinebrewerbooks

    www.reycraftbooks.com

    www.facebook.com/reycraftbooks

    www.instagram.com/reycraftbooks

    www.twitter.com/reycraftbooks

  • A Whole Other Twist on “Let Them Eat Cake!”

    A Whole Other Twist on “Let Them Eat Cake!”

    A Whole Other Twist on “Let Them Eat Cake!”
    DC Elementary Librarian, Local Author, and National Education Lawyer
    Team Up to Feed “Hungry Readers Chocolate Cake” Over the Summer!

    Donation of Books to Truesdale Elementary Library, Students and School’s Little Free Library
    Kicks Off Summer Reading Program and Extends Hungry Readers Campaign

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – June 21, 2021

    Contact: caroline@carolinebrewerbooks.com

    Washington, D.C. – In a whole other twist on “Let them eat cake!”, Truesdale Elementary Librarian Eboni Henry, National Education Lawyer Gary M. Ratner, and Caroline Brewer, Author of the Forthcoming Say Their Names picture book and Darius Daniels: Game On! have teamed up to feed “hungry readers chocolate cake” over the summer.

    The donation of more than 30 Books to Truesdale Elementary’s School Library, its students and the school’s Little Free Library takes place today at the school, 12:30 p.m. – 1:00 p.m., 800 Ingraham St NW, Washington, DC 20011.

    The donation continues Brewer’s “Hungry Readers” campaign, where she has enlisted friends and family to help her donate books to schools, libraries, and youth programs in the DC Metro area and around the country. This iteration of the campaign has seen the donation of more than 250 copies of books, including more than 100 of Darius Daniels: Game On!, a book filled with rap, rhyme, and riddles, designed to get kids hooked on books. The donation includes picture books, chapter books, and middle grade novels, books with Black and Latino characters to feed the needs of the majority Latino and Black student population, books on the environment, and some Newberry Medal and Coretta Scott King Award winners. In years past, Brewer has donated thousands of books, mostly her own.

    Truesdale Librarian Henry said she’s noticed that children aren’t visiting public libraries as often so she created a “Little Free Library” outside Truesdale where students and any member of the community can take books home and keep them for their own. She and a colleague usually supply the “library” throughout the summer. New donations from Brewer, Ratner, and other friends will help edify the collection.

    “I’m a strong believer in the importance of reading to satisfaction and success in life.  Knowing that Caroline Brewer’s books for children help some of our neediest children to attain this goal, I was pleased to make a donation to expand the availability of the extraordinary middle grade novel: Darius Daniels,” said Ratner, Founder and Executive Director of Citizens for Effective Schools. Ratner has been a nationally recognized authority on school reform law and policy for more than 30 years and is a principal drafter of the Joint Organizational Statement on No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, the policy statement for overhauling NCLB endorsed by more than 150 national organizations and replacing it with the ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act). “Rich in cultural allusions and broadening vocabulary, Darius Daniels is an excellent way to engage, entertain and intellectually stimulate students this summer, while simultaneously combatting the traditional summer loss in reading skills.”

    Brewer says she’s never met a child who wasn’t hungry to learn to read, write, and learn and that’s why she calls her campaign “Hungry Readers.” The authors of a new book,  How to Raise a Reader, Pamela Paul and Maria Russo, the editor and the children’s-books editor, respectively, of The New York Times Book Review, have said that those who want to inspire reading love in children should present reading not as “spinach,” but as “chocolate cake.” Making books and reading fun has been Brewer’s calling card for the past 20 years as an author, literacy activist, and consultant. “I call rap, rhyme, and riddles ‘literacy accelerants,’ ” says Brewer. “When children get their hands on books that have meaning and are fun, many become brand-new and fall in love with themselves as human beings, whereas before they had lots of doubts. Good books feed children’s imaginations and inspire success and that’s all we’re here for.”

    Connect with Caroline Brewer on the following sites:

    www.carolinebrewerbooks.com * facebook.com/brewercaroline *twitter.com/brewercaroline

    instagram.com/carolinebrewerbooks