Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson, co-founders of Just Us Books and editors of the best-selling anthology We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices, will join children’s book creators in a live, virtual event for students in Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN on Tuesday, March 10, 2026 at 11am ET/ 10 am CT.
Hosted by PEN America, in collaboration with Just Us Books, Penguin Random House, The Children’s Book Council, The Authors Guild, The Brown Bookshelf, Red Ballon Bookshop, AMAZEworks, Hennepin County Public Library, and St. Paul Public Library, the event will share messages of hope, resilience, and activism for young people in the Twin Cities and across the county.
First published in 2018 by Penguin Random House in partnership with Just Us Books, We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices includes contributions by fifty diverse children’s authors and illustrators. Eight years later the messages shared in the anthology are as important now as they were when the book was first published, especially in light of recent events in Minneapolis.
A Jane Addams Peace Association honor book, We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices has received starred reviews from Kirkus, Horn Book and Publishers Weekly, which called it an “empowering anthology to counter today’s often-unsettling political climate for children of varying ethnicities, faiths, identities, and abilities.” “Every turn of the page is a new and different experience; the tone of the book moves seamlessly from joyful to somber to curious, and inspired, offering children of many different ages a place to land and learn, and find their own lives reflected back at them,” said School Library Journal.
Among the authors who will participate in the virtual event are Jacqueline Woodson, Kelly Starling Lyons, Sharon M. Draper, Sharon Flake, Rita Williams-Garcia, Ellen Oh, Margarita Engle, Tony Medina, Tameka Fryer Brown, Cheryl Willis Hudson, and Wade Hudson.
Ahead of the virtual event, St. Paul bookstore, Red Balloon, and educational partner, AMAZEworks, will distribute over 600 copies of We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices to students and libraries in the Twin cities. The books are donated, courtesy of Penguin Random House.
The virtual event is free. To register visit: We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices - PEN America
