It has been a fantastic book month for award-winning author and poet Nikki Grimes. With over 100 published books for young and teen readers, Grimes has blessed the world with another picture book, A Cup of Quiet. Released April 15, 2025 by Bloomsbury Children’s Books and illustrated by Cathy Ann Johnson, it is a colorful, beautifully sonic, yet peaceful offering about the relationship between a girl and her grandmother and their regard for nature.
Black Children’s Books and Authors’ mission is to promote awareness of children’s and young adult literature by Black authors. We are honored to participate in the blog tour celebrating A Cup of Quiet and are pleased to share this interview with Nikki Grimes. After reading the interview, head over to our Twitter and Facebook pages and like the pinned posts to win a copy of A Cup of Quiet. Enjoy!
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BCBA: In a YouTube snippet from Bloomsbury Publishing, you mentioned that you realized “how few children’s books featured Black characters engaging in nature.” Can you speak on that a little more?
NG: People of Color in general, and Black people in particular, are kept in certain boxes. One of the boxes says that all contemporary Black people live exclusively in the inner-city, and have no connection with nature. That doesn’t happen to be true, of course. We live in small towns and big cities, but also on ranches, on farms, in deserts, in the mountains—you name it, but you’d hardly know that, based on many of the books that make it to the marketplace. It’s only recently that books centering Black characters engaging in nature have begun showing up, to help change and broaden that narrative. Our people are everywhere, and that includes the great outdoors.
BCBA: A CUP OF QUIET shows Grandma not only helping her granddaughter connect with nature, but she also models self-care and imagination. What are the lifelong impacts of reading and learning about such things from an early age?
NG: That self-care piece is especially important! Women are hard-wired to care for everyone else, and not ourselves. That tendency is multiplied when it comes to Black women. Books that model self-care as a good, natural, and organic way to live plant a seed in the minds and hearts of young readers, so that they’ll be more likely to emulate that healthy behavior as they grow. I’ve been working on a book of nonfiction for adults, and one of the key chapters in it focuses on self-care. We simply don’t do enough of that.
BCBA: Some authors have said they sometimes don’t know who will illustrate their story. Cathy Ann Johnson’s illustrations are fresh and bold. Grandma’s short, gray afro is so on point and realistic. Did you know that she was going to illustrate your story? And how do you feel about the art in A CUP OF QUIET?
NG: Cathy Ann was on my wish-list of illustrators for Legacy: Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance, and was my only choice for the paperback cover of Words With Wings, so I was already keen on her work, and asked for her, specifically, for this book. I believed she was exactly the right artist for A Cup of Quiet, and I was right. She couldn’t have tapped into my imagination more completely if we’d done a Vulcan mind-meld! I’m more than pleased with the result. I’m downright giddy!
BCBA: This book is a wonderful title for our Grandparents Day picture book list. How meaningful is the relationship between grandparents and children?
NG: The grandparent-grandchild bond is very special. I love watching adults with their grandbabies together, the way the faces of both adult and child light up when they connect! That relationship, alone, is worth celebrating. I think that’s especially true now, with so many grandparents stepping in to raise their grandchildren—not that we didn’t do so in the past, mind you. However, the number of grandparents tasked with this role has exploded in recent years.
BCBA: You are a prolific writer who has won countless awards and honors and has written everything from picture books to young adult poetry to prose. What inspires you to keep writing for young readers?
NG: The right books in the hands of the right children have the power to turn them into lifelong readers. And those books have the capacity to inspire, encourage, heal, uplift, challenge, transform, and plant seeds of empathy and compassion in the hearts and minds of those readers. What more reason do I need to continue creating books for them?
Don’t forget to enter to win a copy of A Cup of Quiet. To enter, like the pinned posts on our Twitter and Facebook pages.
Nikki Grimes | Cathy Ann Johnson | Bloomsbury Children’s Books
April 15, 2025 | PB
Photo by Aaron Lemen
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