Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat

Illustrated and written by Javaka Steptoe and published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

cover image of Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat

About

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In “Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat,” collage style paintings with rich texture, bold colors and thick lines take readers on an emotional journey. Steptoe’s style blends with motifs from Basquiat’s own art to create this stunning picture book biography.

“Steptoe’s illustrations for ‘Radiant Child’ are striking. Painted on found wood, they echo the ‘sloppy, ugly, and sometimes weird, but somehow still beautiful’ quality of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s art, while relating the story of his difficult life,” said Bishop.

Javaka Steptoe is an artist, designer and children’s book illustrator. His debut work, “In Daddy’s Arms I Am Tall: African Americans Celebrating Fathers,” an anthology featuring poetry from notable poets, including Folami Abiade, Dinah Johnson and Carole Boston Weatherford, Angela Johnson and Sonia Sanchez, earned him his first Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award, in 1998; “Jimi: Sounds Like a Rainbow” (written by Gary Golio), received a CSK Illustrator Honor in 2011. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Awards Won

Title Year
seal of Coretta Scott King Book Awards Coretta Scott King Book Awards

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Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mrs. Coretta Scott King by recognizing outstanding books by African American authors and illustrators. The award encourages the artistic expression of the African American experience via literature and the graphic arts, including biographical, historical, and social history treatments.


2017 - Winner(s)