Featured Virtual Author for 2021

Buckeye Book Fair Virtual Authors: The online virtual sale is available by clicking here. Stay tuned for more information regarding our featured virtual author Keila V. Dawson.

Virtual Author: Keila V. Dawson 

Keila V. Dawson is a former teacher, and advocate for children with special needs turned picture book author. Her books include Opening the Road: Victor Hugo Green and His Green Book (2021), No Voice Too Small: Fourteen Young Americans Making History (2020), The King Cake Baby (2015),and the forthcoming Yumbo Gumbo (2022) and No World Too Big: Young People Fighting Climate Change (2023). Dawson is a New Orleans native and has lived and worked on the U.S. east and west coasts, the Philippines, Japan, and Egypt. She lives in Cincinnati. Learn more about her at www.keiladawson.com, on Twitter @keila_dawson, or Instagram @keilavdawson.

Click here for the Educator’s Guide!

Summary:

After the United States built highways, anyone with a car had the freedom to hit the open road. However, getting from one place to another was difficult for Black travelers who did not know how far they would have to drive to buy gas or food, to use the bathroom, or to find a hotel for a night to rest. Opening the Road: Victor Hugo Green and His Green Book is the true story about the creation and distribution of the Green Book travel guides that Black Americans used to plan road trips & vacations across America during legal segregation. In the 1930s, Victor Hugo Green and his Green Book opened the road for millions of Black motorists when travel wasn’t easy or safe for them.