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Feb18

MYBROWNBABY SOCIAL

Tweets by @MyBrownBaby

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And then there is this beauty, which absolutely makes my heart beat fast. I fell in love with Me & Mama, written and illustrated by @cozbi, the second I saw the premise: "On a rainy day when the house smells like cinnamon and Papa and Luca are still asleep, when the clouds are wearing shadows and the wind paints the window with beads of water, I want to be everywhere Mama is." And then Cozbi, a doll and dress maker who also pens beautiful books, sent over her pictures, and @denenemillnerbooks could not let her go. #MamaAndMe is a delicious meditation on the core mission of #DeneneMillnerBooks: we celebrate the everyday humanity of black children. And what could be more everyday, more normal, more US, than a black child wanting to spend a glorious day with her mother? Congratulations, Cozbi, for capturing the love, spirit and joy of the heart connection between daughters and their mothers. Me & Mama hits bookshelves in August, but you can pre-order it today wherever books are sold, including the link in my bio. #blackbooks #booksforblackchildren #writersofinstagram #childrensbooks #picturebooks @simonkids

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And @markettesheppard Sheppard does it again! After gracing @denenemillnerbooks with her debut book, the light beam that is #WhatIsLight?, she's gracing your bookshelves again with her second book, "My Rainy Day Rocket Ship" a high-spirited, engaging salute to the imagination of Black boys who use their beautiful minds to transform the mundane into the extraordinary, dream out loud, and boldly go where their sky is the only limit. And LOOK. AT. THE. ILLUSTRATIONS. @charlypalmer (Charly Palmer) serves all the color, all the juicy, all the #blackboymagic your heart can stand. I mean, this book is just pretty, man. Go 'head and grace your bookshelves. #MyRainyDayRocketship is out in May, but you can preorder today wherever books are sold, or click the #DeneneMillnerBooks link in the bio. #blackbooks #booksforblackchildren #writersofinstagram @simonkids

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Oh, you know @denenemillnerbooks didn't come to play with y'all. I'm so pleased to introduce "If Dominican Were a Color," a GORGEOUS lilting, read-aloud picture book written by @silirecio and illustrated by @macabrii (Brianna McCarthy), publishing on my imprint with @simonkids. Sili celebrates blackness across the diaspora with her words, gently reminding readers that the palette of a nation is never just one hue; indeed, it has as wide a range of colors—and beauty—as nature itself. In other words, WE BLACK Y'ALL—and everywhere we go, there we are! I'm so proud of Sili and Brianna; this is their first book and they murked it. Your baby's bookshelves gonna be LIT come September, when the book drops, but #IfDomicanWereAColor is available for pre-order tuhday. Gone 'head and get you one. Visit Sili's website, www.silirecio.com for more info and to purchase, or click on the #denenemillnerbooks link in my bio to do the same. Congratulations, Sili and Brianna! #blackbooks #booksforblackchildren #writersofinstagram #childrensbooks

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Mommy’s been gone for almost 18 years, but there isn’t a day—not one single day—that I don’t think about her. I’ve taken to talking to her, telling her about my babies, daddy, work. That I miss her. Sometimes, I can remember what her voice sounded like—her laugh. How big it was. Like her heart. Most days, I just... miss her. Today, I looked at the few pictures I have of her on hand and saw her differently; her eyes, her cheekbones, her lips, that smile—they tell a story that, I admit, I’m just now starting to discover. That, at age 51, I’m starting to understand. That’s how it works when you age and mature and you pick up some wisdom along the way. When you really start to live. You compare. Ask questions. And if you listen—really listen—sometimes you get the answers. Bettye Millner was tough. Strong. God-fearing. A quiet force who loved hard and lived a good, simple life. She was also a woman who dreamed for her daughter. Moved in her life in ways that are immeasurable, but felt every single day. Still. This is a picture of us on my wedding day, in the Millennium Hotel in lower Manhattan. That hotel is gone—felled by the tragedy of 9/11. The marriage is gone, too. And my mama. Only thing in the photo still standing is me. I hold my head up high today because my mother is with me. Always with me. For that, I’m grateful. Happy Birthday, Mommy. I’ll love you until the day the sun burns the stars out of the sky... Always.

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A vibe. 💋

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After you finish boo-hooing all the way through the first segment of SPEAKEASY WITH DENENE, get ready for laughs, eye-opening commentary and some sage storytelling as I’m joined by New York Times bestseller and my fav unicorn, @nicstone, author of “Dear Martin,” “Odd One Out,” and the new mid-grade novel, “Clean Getaway.” Nic, who is every bit as funny and outspoken as she is gorgeous, gives us insight into why we need more diverse books for children and teens, what it takes to present an authentic voice in her pages, why it’s a good idea to write romance novels for tweens and why she does her absolute best to have as few white characters in her books as possible. You know this is my passion and mission at @denenemillnerbooks, so the convo is lit!

Joining me for the interview with Nic was Lyric Eschoe, a teen staff member with Vox Teen Communications in Atlanta. Lyric attends Spelman College and is a major Nic Stone fan. She helped me ask Nic all the important questions in this raucous, energetic interview.

We opened the #NicStone with a peek into a book signing featuring Nic and New York Times bestselling author Angie Thomas, who penned the hugely popular book, “The Hate U Give.” You will absolutely love the convo, period, but if you care anything at all about black children, their representation in books and the right of black artists to be storytellers, get to it—listen in! #speakeasywithdenene #blackpodcasts #podcasts
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Though I’ve been a journalist for almost 35 years, I don’t write about my father a lot. James Millner fiercely guards his privacy and is so much more satisfied being humble and living a simple life, that I have no other choice but to respect that he’d rather I not put all his business in the street. But as we considered who in my personal life would be the embodiment of “sunshine,” this week’s password for Speakeasy with Denene, it made perfect sense to invite Daddy to the mic.

He is, after all, my heart. My rock. My shoulder to lean on. My “you can do it” cheerleader. My “it’s gonna be all right, Baby” comforter. The best papa on the whole, wide, planet. The one who found me and said, “She’s mine.” My hero. My daddy. The man who literally lights up my life.

James Jr. is my sunshine.

I thought he would say “no” when I asked him to join me, but, to my surprise, he happily obliged and, a day after Thanksgiving dinner, with a cup of coffee and a thick slice of lemon butter pound cake on his napkin—the cake is my mom’s recipe—he sat in my dining room and submitted to my queries about parenting, marriage, losing the love of his life, being a widower, and learning to look for the sun after the rain.

I’ve done countless interviews in my lifetime, and checking my emotions in the interest of objectivity is the hallmark of my training as a journalist, but this was wholly impossible as I interviewed Daddy. Yes, I cried all the way through it because that’s my father—my sunshine—and when he says he’s proud of me, this 51-year-old, very grown woman still melts like a little girl.

I’ll adore you, Daddy, until the dolphins fly and parrots swim at sea.

Always.

Check out the season finale of SPEAKEASY WITH DENENE, out today on your fav podcast platform and at www.speakeasywithdenene.com. #blackpodcasts #podcast #gpb

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Queenin’. 👑

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Oh happy day for JUST LIKE A MAMA, the debut book on my all-new @denenemillnerbooks imprint with @simonkids! Today is #JustLikeaMama’s book birthday and I’m so proud to present to the world this glorious children’s picture book, penned by Alice Faye Duncan (@alicefayewrites) and illustrated by Charnelle Pinkney Barlow (@callmechartreuse), who makes her picture book debut, following in the footsteps of her illustrious grandfather Jerry Pinkney!
❤️❤️❤️
JUST LIKE A MAMA is about a little girl who comes to understand that the woman raising her while her parents are absent loves her “just like a mama.” I know about this kind of love: as a child of adoption, I’ve written quite a bit about the home my parents made for me—how they made a point of disciplining me, teaching me, embracing me. Loving me. I am their daughter. They are my parents. We are a family. Forever.
So, it only made sense that JUST LIKE A MAMA pulled at every last one of my heart strings. But beyond my personal experience with #foreverfamilies, this #childrensbooks pulls double duty honoring a long-held tradition in our community, in which grandparents, aunties, godparents and the like love children whom they care for and offer kindness to when those babies’ parents cannot.
See, stories about foster care and adoption will have you thinking that only white people adopt brown babies—that Black people don’t look after our own. But we know better. Black people taking care of each other’s non-blood-related children is a long-held tradition that stretches back to the days of slavery, to counter the actions of slave owners who broke up Black families for profit and punishment. Taking care of each other was a strategy for survival. Still is today. And JUST LIKE A MAMA celebrates that.
Buy a bunch of copies of JUST LIKE A MAMA anywhere books are sold and share them with the people in your life with the big hearts. Happy Book Birthday, Alice Faye and Charnelle! #adoption #fosteringsaveslives #foreverfamilies

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MYBROWNBABY’S DENENE MILLNER

Mom. NY Times bestselling author. Pop culture ninja. Unapologetic lover of shoes, bacon and babies. Nice with the verbs. Founder of the top black parenting website, MyBrownBaby.

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