Nurturing Our Future: A conversation with children’s book author Gwendolyn Wallace ‘17

Article by Daneet Steffens

"Gwendolyn Wallace gives children’s literature a new perspective. By centering Black history and Afrodiasporic voices, she says, she hopes to inspire youngsters to “step into their transformative power.”

Wallace draws from her upbringing in Connecticut, visits with grandparents in South Carolina and academic pursuits to seed her plots. She holds a master’s degree in public history from University College London and is in the first year of a History, Anthropology, Science, Technology and Society (HASTS) Ph.D. program at MIT.

Her book The Light She Feels Inside, published in 2023, offers canny lessons in the history of resistance, name-checking sheroes such as Ida B. Wells, Fannie Lou Hamer, Nina Simone and the Combahee River Collective. In Joy Takes Root, also published in 2023, Wallace portrays a Black grandmother and granddaughter bonding over their mutual love of gardening…”

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