“Artivist” Nikkolas Smith wasn’t the type of kid to say he wanted to be an artist when he grew up. Instead, he went to college, studied architecture, and thought he would design homes.
But now Smith is making his mark on the world through his digital and acrylic artistry. A concept artist on Ryan Coogler’s Oscar-winning film “Sinners,” the native Houstonian spends his time writing and illustrating children’s picture books that center on history (“I Am Ruby Bridges” and “The 1619 Project: Born on the Water”) and spotlights Black superheroes in pop culture from Marvel’s Black Panther to Captain America. He’s brainstormed with the architects on the Obama Presidential Center and did movie posters for “Southside with You,” the 2016 film that tells the story of Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson’s first unofficial date when they met in Chicago in 1989.
For María Dolores Águila, a San Diego native and mom of three, writing was her dream. But it took her until her late 20s and early 30s to commit to figuring out how to be a writer.
“I had my kids at that point, and I was not going to tell my kids to follow their dreams, and I’m not doing it,” she said.
María Dolores Águila is the author of the award-winning “A Sea of Lemon Trees: The Corrido of Roberto Alvarez.” (Francisco Aguila)
Both writers are winners of the 2026 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, an annual honor sponsored by the Jane Addams Peace Association that recognizes children’s books that promote peace, social justice, equity and community. Smith’s “The History of We” and Águila’s “A Sea of Lemon Trees: The Corrido of Roberto Alvarez” won in the picture book and chapter book categories, respectively. Derrick Barnes, author of “The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze,” and Sonja Cherry-Paul, who adapted “How the Word is Passed: Remembering Slavery and How It Shaped America” for young readers, were also honored in the chapter book category; while “A Line Can Go Anywhere: The Brilliant, Resilient Life of Artist Ruth Asawa” by Caroline McAlister and author and illustrator James E. Ransome’s “A Place for Us” were honored in the picture book category.
A national volunteer selection committee of 10 to 12 activists, parents, librarians and educators selects the winners from hundreds of children’s books. The authors honored for the award’s 73rd year will be celebrated at a June 26 ceremony at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, where Jane Addams’ work in social reform and community building connects with the award-winning literature, per Angela Medina, executive director of Jane Addams Peace Association.
“We’re honoring her, her love for immigrants, books, social justice and social work,” Medina said.
As the nation’s only children’s social justice book award, the Jane Addams Peace Association gives the winning literature to thousands of pre-K to 8th-grade students in schools across the country for free. It also brings the authors in to share their work under their Books in Their Hands program, which serves Title I schools, including those in Illinois.
Self-described “artivist” Nikkolas Smith is the author of “The History of We.” (Vanessa Crocini)
Smith’s “The History of We” takes young readers through a hand-painted work that features the origin story of humans in Africa and their curiosity and creativity in art, medicine and exploration. Smith calls the work “educational justice,” wherein he shows the first human fossil remains in Ethiopia 233,000 years ago and walks readers through verified paleontology records and facts like the oldest art artifact found in the Blombos Cave in South Africa and the first sound maker (the woer-woer aka the spinny toys that youth still play with that fly in the air and make noise, invented over 100,000 years ago in Africa.)
“It’s been really special to walk kids through history, remind them that this is where we all come from — to fill in those gaps, because when I was their age, this was decidedly not put into my, or anybody’s, textbook,” he said. “For a lot of reasons that are related to racism, they don’t talk about the origins of humanity, about the 100,000 years of innovation in Africa before we ever left Africa. I wanted this to be a little slice of a National Geographic documentary in picture book form. It talks about the fact that racism is ridiculous, we’re all one race, which is something we all know, but the world we’re in has done a lot to try to divide us, but we are all Homo sapiens, and I wanted to visualize that.”
Águila’s book shares the 1930s Roberto Alvarez vs. the Board of Trustees of the Lemon Grove School District case with young readers. It was the first successful school desegregation court decision in the history of the United States.
“I write for the child that I once was; the child who longed to see themselves on the page, who wanted to see their experience as worthy of being on the page,” Águila said. “I write these books, so kids see that we have a history of resistance and resilience. Things have been hard, and people have fought back and were successful. If you don’t have the knowledge of knowing that your community has fought back, it’s really hard to do it. For me, it’s hard to see the erasure, the pain, but at the same time, the only way that we’re gonna get through this is by creating and sharing art, history, knowledge and stories.”
If you go
The Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Ceremony is 5:30 p.m. Friday at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, 800 S. Halsted St.; free, more information at janeaddamschildrensbookaward.org/get-involved/award-ceremonies
