Anastasia Higginbotham
Photo by Isabel del Rosal
Anastasia is the White Raven award-winning author and illustrator of Divorce Is the Worst, Death Is Stupid, Tell Me About Sex, Grandma, and Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness—all part of the Ordinary Terrible Things series. Her other books include What You Don’t Know: A Story of Liberated Childhood and You Ruined It. She lives in Brooklyn.
Available to speak on dismantling whiteness, collage-making as healing and truth-telling, coping with grief and loss in childhood, children’s lit and social change, professional development, teacher and parent seminars
Praise and Awards
“Higginbotham . . . has a gift for taking difficult subjects and rendering them both simple and deeply honest. She has this enormous respect for young children and that comes through with each of her books.”—SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL
“Meticulously collaged paper art and candid writing.”—NPR
“The author not only informs children about white supremacy and the oppression of people of colour, she also comforts them and encourages them to make a difference, no matter how small they are.”—WHITE RAVEN INTERNATIONAL YOUTH LIBRARY
“The 47-year-old mother of two created her children’s book series Ordinary Terrible Things — which delves into tough topics like divorce, death, sex, and race — because she believes that children need a medium in which to learn about and discuss the hardest aspects of life.”—PEOPLE MAGAZINE
Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness selected as a 2019 International Children’s Library White Raven Book
Books
As a child views his grandmother in a casket, he overhears a relative say, “She’s in a better place.” Furious, he asks, “Would I be in a better place if I died?!” He wants his grandmother back and is freaked at seeing his father cry.
Kids are told, “it’s for the best”—and one day, it may be. But right now, divorce is the worst. With honesty and humor, Anastasia Higginbotham beautifully conveys the challenge of staying whole when your entire world, and the people in it, split apart.
Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness
“Racism was not your idea. You don’t need to defend it.”
This version of “the talk” emphasizes that sexuality is your birthright, and it develops over a lifetime.
