My Papi’s Hands

About the Author

Melissa Seron Richardson is a Mexican American mom of three who lives in Utah. Having grown up as a mixed-race child, she hopes her work will give a voice and a path to other mixed-race kids to discover where they belong. Melissa is the author of The Last Slice and Five Words That Are Mine. She invites you to follow her on Instagram @melissaseronrichardson.

Edel Rodriguez is a Cuban American artist and author who has exhibited internationally, was the art director of Time magazine, and has created artwork for The New York Times,Time magazine, and The New Yorker, just to name a few. He is the illustrator of many books, including his own The Mango Tree (La mata de mango), Song for Jimi: The Story of Guitar Legend Jimi Hendrix by Charles R. Smith Jr., and Float Like a Butterfly by Ntozake Shange. Edel lives with his wife and daughters in New Jersey, and he invites you to discover his work at edelrodriguez.com.

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About the Illustrator

Ntozake Shange, poet, novelist, playwright, and performer, wrote the Broadway-produced and Obie Award-winning For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf. She has also written numerous works of fiction for adults, including Sassafras, Cypress and Indigo, Betsy Brown, and Liliane, as well as both fiction and nonfiction for children, including Coretta Scott, Ellington Was Not a Street, Daddy Says, and Whitewash. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Edel Rodriguez is a Cuban American artist who has exhibited internationally with shows in Los Angeles, Toronto, New York, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Spain. In 1994, Rodriguez graduated with honors in painting from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. In 1998, he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from Manhattan’s Hunter College graduate program. Throughout his career, Rodriguez has received commissions to create artwork for numerous clients, including the New York Times, Time Magazine, the New Yorker, and many other publications and book publishers. Rodriguez’s artwork is in the collections of a variety of institutions, including the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., as well as in numerous private collections. Find his work online at edelr.com.

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