Nina Crews is an author and illustrator of child centered stories like I’m Not Small, One Hot Summer Day, The Neighborhood Mother Goose, and A Girl Like Me, written by Angela Johnson. Her books Extraordinary Magic: The Storytelling Life of Virginia Hamilton, Seeing Into Tomorrow: Haiku by Richard Wright (poems by Richard Wright,) and Not Done Yet: Shirley Chisholm’s Fight for Change, by Tameka Fryer Brown, celebrate storytellers and changemakers.

Honors include best book lists from the ALA Notable Committee, the Black Caucus of the ALA, Kirkus Reviews, Junior Library Guild, Bank Street College of Education, and others. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. www.ninacrews.com

Awards

Liftoff: How the Apollo Moon Missions Made Alma Thomas’s Art Soar – Center for the Study of Multicultural Children’s Literature’s Best Books of 2025 ; Big Family Beach Day -Kirkus Best Book of 2025; Extraordinary Magic: The Storytelling Life of Virginia Hamilton – Bank Street Children’s Book Committee – Best Books list of the Year 2024; 2023 New York State Library Association’s Empire State Award.

3 Fun Facts

1. I love looking at art and one of my favorite books as a kid was The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I thought it would be fun to live in the museum like those kids did.
2. I love looking at the moon, but I wouldn’t want to live there. It is either too hot or too cold and there is nothing green and growing.
3. My living room is filled with plants, and I love green growing things.