Breanna J. McDaniel (she/her/hers) is an emerging creative and recovering scholar. She’s published in myriad academic journals, an academic anthology, and her debut picture book Hands Up! was published with Dial Books in 2019.
Since its publication, Hands Up! was selected as a children’s book that “Books All Young Georgians Should Read” in 2019 by the Georgia Center for the Book. Recognized by the Chicago Public Library as, “one of the very best picture books published for kids from birth to 3rd grade in 2019,” in their Best of the Best Books round-up for 2019 and finally, Hands Up! was awarded the “2021 First Novelist Honor Book” by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, Inc. and School Library Journal.
She is also the author of other picture books, including Atlanta, My Home for the City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office and Impossible Moon which was published with Denene Millner Books/ Simon and Schuster.
Her newest book with Penguin Random House’s imprint Dial Go Forth and Tell: The Life of August Baker, Librarian and Master Storyteller, was published February 6, 2024 and has received five starred reviews. Her fifth picture book Cute Toot was published in April 2024 and she also has two more picture books with Henry Holt Books for Young Readers at Macmillan.
Breanna is the co-founder of REIYL and completed her PhD at a university in the UK and looked at surveillance in representations of Black children as food. As an activist she is engaged in thinking through access to different types of literacy for families from the Global Majority and she’s adamant about promoting the work and connections of children’s book creators from those communities too.
Her forthcoming books include AUNTIE’S BABY (Holt/Macmillan, illustrated by Savanna Dur) and PROMISE ME, WORLD (Holt, Macmillan).
