Education Professor Raphael Rogers will facilitate this conversation with picture book Author Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie. They will discuss the role contemporary picture books written by Black women can play in helping teachers respond to the absence of Blackness and Anti-Blackness in elementary-level classrooms.
Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie is featured in Rogers’ 2025 book, “Representing Black Girl with Contemporary Picture Books.” Her book “Layla’s Happiness,” illustrated by Ashleigh Corrin, represents Black childhood joy with images and words. Rogers and Ekere Tallie will discuss why books like “Layla’s Happiness” should be a part of elementary school classrooms and library collections.
Ekere Tallie earned her MFA from Mills College and is an interdisciplinary artist and Ph.D. candidate in theatre arts and performance studies at Brown University. Her dissertation centers on “Black Otherwises” in the work of Ntozake Shange and weaves together performance studies methodologies, archival research, Black feminist theory, and African-based spirituality. Beyond “Layla’s Happiness,” Tallie is also the author of the poetry collections “Karma’s Footsteps,” “Dear Continuum: Letters to a Poet Crafting Liberation,” and “Strut.” Additionally, her work has been published in North American Review, WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, Black Renaissance Noire, Vida, Crab Orchard Review, and Bomb.
