You Are My Pride : A Love Letter from Your Motherland

In this powerfully written and beautifully illustrated picture book by award-winning author and illustrator team Carole Boston Weatherford and E. B. Lewis, Mother Africa addresses her offspring of all colors in all corners of the earth, reminding us of our timeless bond.

Written in the voice of Mother Africa, who speaks to her children—human beings—this stunning picture book thrums with the love between mother and child as it celebrates humanity’s common roots.

Before words or tools or fire, Mother Africa’s caves sheltered us and her forests fed us. She could not protect us from all dangers, but, like mothers everywhere, she gave her children all she could and sent us into the world with confidence and love. Told in the ringing, singing language of a creation story, this book is a love letter from mother to child that honors our shared history. 

Includes back matter with nonfiction information about human evolution and about the migration of Homo sapiens from Africa around the globe.

New York Times best-selling author Carole Boston Weatherford’s 60-plus books include the Caldecott Honor book Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, for which she was awarded the Coretta Scott King Author Award and a Sibert Honor; the Newbery Honor winner Box; and the Caldecott Honor winners Freedom in Congo Square, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Moses. She won a Coretta Scott King Author Honor for Becoming Billie Holiday. Weatherford teaches at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina.

E.  B. Lewis, award-winning illustrator and fine artist, has illustrated over seventy books for children, including The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson and Lizzie Demands a Seat by Beth Anderson. After his graduation from the Temple University Tyler School of Art, Lewis taught art in public schools for twelve years. Presently, he teaches at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.