The Everlasting Embrace

Gabrielle Emanuel lived in Mali for a year after graduating from Dartmouth. She worked in the health sector in the small town of Bandiagara and later in the capitol of Bamako. She would often read to one little girl, and was dismayed that none of the books available reflected the landscape and culture of the country. For the next two years she was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford studying public policy; she now works at NPR in Washington, D.C., where she currently lives. Gabrielle has always loved traveling and storytelling. The Everlasting Embrace, her first book, gave her the opportunity to combine those loves. E.B. Lewis has illustrated many acclaimed picture books, including his collaborations with Jacqueline Woodson: Each Kindness, The Other Side, and Coming On Home Soon, which was named a Caldecott Honor Book. He received the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for Talkin About Bessie by Nikki Grimes. He teaches at the University of Arts in Philadelphia and makes his home in Folsom, New Jersey.”

E.B. Lewis is the award-winning illustrator of such books as Virgie Goes to School with Us Boys by Elizabeth Fitzgerald, which was a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book, and This Little Light of Mine. He received the Caldecott Honor for Coming on Home Soon by Jacqueline Woodson and the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for Talkin’ About Bessie: The Story of Aviator Elizabeth Coleman by Nikki Grimes. E.B. Lewis lives in New Jersey, and you can visit him online at EBLewis.com.