How The Word Is Passed: Remembering Slavery and How It Shaped America, original work by Clint Smith, now adapted for young readers by Sonja Cherry-Paul, published by Little Brown Books for Young Readers.

How the Word Is Passed explores how the United States both remembers and avoids the history of slavery, racism, and resistance. In visits to plantations, memorials, prisons, and schools, Cherry-Paul reveals that history is shaped by power, silence, and choice. In doing so, the book powerfully reflects the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award’s mission that true peace is not simply the absence of war, but the presence of justice, dignity, and opportunity for all people.
The book invites readers to practice compassion and empathy by listening deeply to stories of those who have long been marginalized. Cherry-Paul emphasizes that confronting painful truths about the past is essential to creating a more just present. By modeling careful listening and moral courage, the text demonstrates how people of all racial identities, gender identities, religions, abilities, classes, and cultures can live and work together equitably through honesty, shared responsibility, and mutual respect.
Finally, the book affirms the inherent worth of all individuals and communities, including the women whose labor, resistance, and leadership have often been minimized in historical narratives. By restoring complexity and humanity to the stories we tell, How the Word Is Passed builds respect for difference. Ultimately, it calls young readers to participate in the ongoing work of justice, equality, and peace, reminding us that how we tell our history shapes the future we are able to imagine and create.