Moonflower By Kacen Callender & Illustrated by Daniel Minter | Beautiful Blackbird Children's Book Festival

Moonflower

By Kacen Callender & Illustrated by Daniel Minter

Moon’s depression is overwhelming. Therapy doesn’t help, and Moon is afraid that their mom hates them because they’re sad. Moon’s only escape is traveling to the spirit realms every night, where they hope they’ll never return to the world of the living again.
The spirit realm is where they have their one and only friend, Wolf, and where they’re excited to experience an infinite number of adventures. But when the realm is threatened, it’s up to Moon to save the spirit world.
With the help of celestial beings and guardians, Moon battles monsters and shadows, and through their journey, they begin to learn that a magical adventure of love and acceptance awaits them in the world of the living, too.
This story of hope shows readers that our souls blossom when we realize that we are as worthy and powerful as the universe itself.

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Kacen Callender

Kacen Callender is a bestselling and award-winning author of multiple novels for children, teens, and adults, including King and the Dragonflies, winner of the National Book Award, Coretta Scott King Honor and Lambda Literary Award and Hurricane Child, winner of the Lambda Literary Award and Stonewall Honor Award, and the bestselling novel Felix Ever After. They live in the US Virgin Islands.

Daniel Minter

Daniel Minter is an American artist known for his work in the mediums of painting and assemblage. He is a visual storyteller and accomplished illustrator. Minter’s artwork reflects abiding themes of displacement and diaspora; ordinary/extraordinary blackness; spirituality in the Afro-Atlantic world; and the (re)creation of meanings of home. Minter’s paintings, carvings, block prints, and sculptures have been exhibited both nationally and internationally at galleries and museums. He is the co-founder and creative visionary of the Portland Freedom Trail, a system of granite and bronze markers that constitutes a permanent walking trail highlighting the people, places, and events associated with the anti-slavery movement in Portland. Minter’s work also marks the Malaga Island Trail which remembers the Black, European and Native American residents of the island who were forcibly removed by the state of Maine in 1912. He has illustrated over a dozen children’s books and is the recipient of the Coretta Scott King Illustration Honor and Caldecott Honor. Minter is the co-founder and creative director of Indigo Arts Alliance, the founding organization of this festival.