Press

Starred Review of You Ruined It in School Library Journal

“Higginbotham approaches a difficult topic with sensitivity and nuance; an excellent, insightful resource for young people who have been through abuse, as well as friends of young people who have been sexually assaulted.”

Betsy Bird calls You Ruined It “unapologetically intersectional” in the School Library Journal

“But while Dawn may be on the path to finding closure we, the readers, won’t get that neat, pat ending we’re used to. This book is about treating the child who went through this.”

Activist Christopher Rufo foments fear on children’s picture book on MSNBC Morning Joe

“…they’re teaching children as young as kindergarten that whiteness is the devil…the book is called Not My Idea, it’s being taught in hundreds of schools in Illinois.”

Fox’s ‘Outnumbered’ panel discuss Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness  Fox News

“…there’s a devil with a contract binding white students and getting them to sign off on imaginary terms like stolen land, stolen riches, and special favors…I mean that’s just wackadoodle.”

“More public schools pushing anti-white book” says Fox News 

“The book promotes the idea that the United States is a systemically racist country and that white children are inherently born into white supremacy.”

Anastasia Higginbotham and I Agreed to Disagree  The Atlantic

“Do the same people who worry about making white kids feel bad about being white want Black kids to feel good about being Black?….[T]hat ability to look at a problem as insidious as systemic racism and conclude that white children need to be protected from knowing about that so they don’t feel bad is whiteness. It makes sense only in its diabolical reversal of truth that portrays white kids as the real victims of racism.”

The Picture Book that Prompted a School Censorship Bill in the Texas House Texas Signal

“State Rep. James Talarico, a former public school teacher, blasted Toth for even failing to understand the repercussions of the bill. ‘Your lengthy bill about civics makes no effort to teach about slavery – the only thing you’re doing is preventing us from talking about race in a way that makes you uncomfortable,’ said Talarico.”

“Divorce, death, sex, race: Higginbotham takes many of today’s most complex issues and translates them for young readers with her book series Ordinary Terrible Things.“

“It’s rare that I read a book for a kid that does something I’ve never seen done before…”

“We should be furious at the lies we’ve been made to believe, the education we’ve been denied, the ways we’ve been manipulated—paid off, basically, to keep quiet. Living under white supremacy is soul-crushing and has us as accomplices to genocide and mass murder 24/7.”

“Higginbotham is silently asking her readers to be more aware of everything around them…”

31 Days, 31 Lists: Day Thirteen – 2017 Picture Books With a Message  by Elizabeth Bird, School Library Journal

An Interview with Writer & Illustrator Anastasia Higginbotham – The Believer  Interviewed by Amy Fusselman

“I admired how Higginbotham neatly smashed common expectations about what children’s books do, particularly those that deal with difficult subjects.”

Well Illustrated: The First Sex Talk Tell Me About Sex, Grandma adapted for The New York Times

We ask children’s book writer Anastasia Higginbotham why she titles her latest book Tell Me About Sex, Grandma.

Tell Me About Sex, Grandma – Kirkus Reviews  Interviewed by Megan Labrise

“When my grandmother watched me after school, I had to learn about sex the old-fashioned way: from Golden Girls reruns.”

“If I were independently wealthy, I’d buy a small plane, fly across the country, and drop off copies of this book to every elementary-school health and sex educator out there.”

Tell Me About Sex, Grandma  Review in Kirkus

“Higginbotham follows titles on death and divorce with a refreshingly different take on a child’s sex question.”

NYPL 2016 Award Winners

Death Is Stupid, selected as one of the Best Books For Kids 2016 by the New York Public Library

Children’s book roundup: Kwame Alexander’s ‘Booked,’ more  by Nara Schoenberg for The Chicago Tribune

“I laughed out loud when I saw the title “Death Is Stupid” — what a perfect antidote to all those gentle and fanciful introductions to the toughest and least whimsical of topics.”

Death Is Stupid Starred Review in Publishers Weekly

“It’s that exact mix of true-to-life humor and unflinching honesty that makes Higginbotham’s book work so well…”

Conversations with Creative Women Podcast  with Sandi Klein

Meet and get to know Anastasia Higginbotham, writer, illustrator and creator of the children’s book series, “Ordinary Terrible Things.”

Radical Empathy: DEATH IS STUPID, an Interview with Anastasia Higginbotham  with MUTHA Magazine

“What the child needs is the room to have a reaction. Kids don’t want us to solve their problems. I think that they want us to recognize and acknowledge that they have real problems. A real inner life. One that is rich and real and complicated.”

“Death is Stupid” – a reading at Fargo’s independent bookstore!

“Death is Stupid fills a children’s book void that I thought I truly wondered how to fill.”

Death Is Stupid, and Other Lessons Children Teach Us About the Inevitable End  by Courtney E. Martin

“It’s a beautiful assemblage of a book — as if Romare Bearden himself rose from the dead and created a sequel to Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.”

Death is Stupid Talks Straight To Kids About A Topic Most Grown-Ups Struggle With

“…readers are given the space to explore the well-intentioned answers and advice that grown-ups pat into the palms and shoulders of the kids they love, and the ways in which those hugs and kisses can land like blows.”

Divorce Is the Worst Review in Publishers Weekly

“… it’s Higginbotham’s directness and refusal to talk down to her audience that will make this book such an asset to families negotiating divorce.”

Book on Divorce Launches Series for Feminist Press  by Sally Lodge

“This book is about tending to and mending broken places so that real healing can happen.”

Writing Is My Drink blog review of Divorce Is the Worst  by Theo Pauline Nestor

“Divorce Is the Worst is the book I want to turn back time and read with my five year old on my lap.”

5 Things Kids Wish Adults Knew About Divorce  by Sarah Humphreys Collins

“Kids know you’re hurting, so don’t try to hide it.”

A kid-friendly view of divorce  by Lynn Green

“An excellent resource for children and parents, as well as therapists and educators, Divorce Is the Worst ends on an uplifting note with tips on how kids can use collage to make books and tell their own stories.”