ROANOKE, VA.- Author and illustrator Shadra Strickland is passionate about promoting positivity through her work, and her ultimate goal is to teach children how to live their dreams. Her style is a whimsical blend of reality and imagination, and she loves to create stories in which children can see themselves. This exhibit features a selection of original works from five books illustrated by Strickland between the years 2008 and 2017, including Bird, written by Zetta Elliot and published in 2008. This award-winning book explores the life of a young boy who uses his love of drawing to deal with real life problems. Also on view are works from A Place Where Hurricanes Happen, written by Reneé Watson and published in 2010, which gives a child’s view of a New Orleans neighborhood before and after the disasters surrounding Hurricane Katrina. Please Louise, written by Toni Morrison in 2012, was inspired by the author’s early days working in libraries and extolls the wonders of reading and imagination. Published in 2016, Loving vs. Virginia is a documentary novel written by Patricia Hruby Powell about the historic landmark civil rights case. To illustrate this book, Strickland explores digital mediums based on vintage photographs in a style known as “visual journalism” championed in the 1950s by famed illustrator Leo Lionni. Strickland’s most recent illustrations are beautiful, soft palette linoleum block prints done for A Child’s Book of Prayers and Blessings, written by Deloris Jordan.

Presented in conjunction with summer classes taught at Hollins University in the MFA in Children’s Book Writing and Illustrating, this exhibition includes examples of works showing the process of illustrating the books mentioned above from inspiration to publication, presenting storyboards, digital layouts, ideas about pagination, tracing over original designs, and sketchbooks.

Strickland studied design, writing, and illustration at Syracuse University and later went on to complete her MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Soon after graduation, she was offered an opportunity to illustrate her first book, an emergent reader called BIG OR LITTLE, written by Fonda Bell Miller and published by Lee and Low Books. She won the Ezra Jack Keats Award and the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent in 2009 for her work in Bird. Strickland co-illustrated Our Children Can Soar, winner of a 2010 NAACP Image Award. She has published with Simon and Schuster, Random House, Candlewick, Chronicle Books, and Little Brown; her books have received recognition from the American Library Association, Junior Library Guild, and other prominent literary lists. Strickland travels the country conducting workshops and sharing her work with children, teachers, and librarians. She currently works and teaches illustration at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, where Strickland houses her Jump In Studio.