Renowned artist and professor of art Tom Feelings is known for his ability to expose the reality of life for African Americans, combining the beauty and warmth of the culture with suffering and pain. For more than thirty years, he has illustrated award-winning books for children and young adults.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Feelings knew at a young age that he would be an artist. "The first time I remember getting any recognition of my talent was in kindergarten from a schoolteacher who took me by the hand and showed a drawing I had done to teachers in other classes," he wrote in an essay for the Something About the Author Autobiography Series (SAAS). That year, he lived with his mother Anna and sister Flo in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. His mother and father had split up when he was two, but Feelings remembers...