You are a thousand curls
unfurling in your hair.
You are a thousand fists
standing proudly in air.

You are the song of swallows,
lifting sun as they sing -
breaking light with their beaks,
breaking sky with their wings . . .

Black girlhood is beautiful! In this deeply moving celebration and rallying cry, and in the face of the many messages that still work to convince Black girls that they should shrink themselves, hide their light, know their place, Brynne Barnes and Tatyana Fazlalizadeh reclaim that narrative: A Black girl's place is everywhere, and her selfhood is everything she can dream it to be.

With poignant, poetic prose and striking, color-drenched illustrations, this empowering picture book centers the inherent worthiness and radiance of Black girls that is still far too often denied. A love letter to and for Black girls everywhere, IN GOLD AND GLORY alchemizes the sorrow and strength of the past into the brilliant gold of the future, sweeping young readers of all backgrounds into a lyrical exploration of what it means to be Black, female, and glorious.