When I Hear Spirituals& The Reckoning

By Cheryl Willis Hudson and Wade Hudson
(A Power Team in Black Writing and Publishing)

The Reckoning by Wade Hudson
Random House Children’s Books, 256 pages
When I Hear Spirituals
by Cheryl Wade Hudson
Illustrated by London Ladd
Holiday House, 40 pages.

Cheryl Willis Hudson and Wade Hudson, authors and founders of Just Us Books, a Black-owned business and recognized leader in multicultural publishing, are pioneers in the publishing industry. Their recent books The Reckoning (Random House Children’s Books, 2024) and When I Hear Spirituals ( Holiday House, 2025) continue their focus to write books that provide a Black lens for addressing the Black experience in America through themes related to history, social justice, family, race, identity, and joy.

The Reckoning by Wade Hudson captures a pivotal and emotional transformative experience for 12 year old Lamar Phillips who lives in Morton, Louisiana. After the brutal killing of his grandfather, Lamar refuses to accept that the killer shot his grandfather in self-defense and commits to uncovering the true story behind the murder of his grandfather, Joshua David Phillips.

Lamar has recently developed a connection with his grandfather who helped him to purchase a video recorder. The video recorder becomes a metaphor for exacting justice in this southern town. Lamar videotapes a Town Hall meeting where his grandfather takes the lead in demanding paved roads for the town and uses his video recorder to become one of the documentarians of the protests that are held to demand justice for the sudden death of his grandfather.

Teachable moments are woven throughout this compelling middle grade novel. Lamar is a young boy who has dreams of becoming a filmmaker in the tradition of Spike Lee. He orders a book called Smoketown:The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance by Mark Whitaker so that he can learn as much as he can about Black movies.

Smoketown adds to the Black literary canon and captures Black culture and influence in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from the 1920s to the 1950s.

Lamar’s grandfather has been a strong advocate for social justice throughout his life as a civil rights activist in the sixties and as a leader and organizer of Black men during the Vietnam War.

He shares a documentary on Ida B. Wells with Lamar and his friends and he reminds them that they are the future and must continue the fight for social justice. In order to do that, they must read everything they can.

Throughout the novel, Hudson highlights the history and impact of student protests, the Black Lives Matter Movement, and the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd to underscore the actions that Lamar and his family must take in advocating for justice for their slain elder. Although this book is in the middle school genre, it will resonate with both middle school and young adult readers.

When I Hear Spirituals, by Cheryl Willis Hudson, is a beautifully written and illustrated picture book that takes readers on a journey that captures spirituals or “Sorrow Songs” as W.E.B. DuBois calls them in his classic book, The Souls of Black Folk.

These spirituals reflect and portray the persistence and resilience of Black people as they fight throughout decades for liberation from enslavement and Jim Crow laws. The illustrations by London Ladd vividly capture the emotions, joy, and sorrow that spirituals have evoked for men, women, and children.

Like her husband Wade Hudson, Cheryl Willis Hudson provides teachable moments in this artfully composed book. At the end of When I Hear Spirituals, she presents readers with a list of resources that include her author’s note on the history of spirituals, historical figures and events illustrated in the book, a glossary of books, and a digital resource of spirituals.

Cheryl and Wade Hudson have each authored nearly 20 books with Just Us Books and other publishers. They began their journey as a power couple when they were raising their children and wanted to find books depicting Black images and families. Disappointed by the limited number of children’s books published by Black writers, they launched the AFRO-BETSR ABC which taught the alphabets using Afro-centric themes and images.

When they published AFRO-BETS-123 with orders from Black bookstores, parents’ groups, and teachers, 5000 copies of the book had been sold before the book was printed. The Hudsons subsequently started Just Us Books in their home. Since the beginning of their publishing endeavor, they have partnered with publishers such as Third World Press and Black Classic Press and have received numerous awards for their work.

Cheryl and Wade Hudson will be participants at the 2025 National Black Writers Conference on Young Adult and Middle School Literature at Medgar Evers College on March 29, 2025. For more information about the conference visit www.centerforblackliterature.org

Dr. Brenda M. Greene is Professor of English and Founder and Executive Director Emeritus of the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, CUNY.