James Haskins

James Haskins (September 19, 1941 – July 6, 2005) was an American author with more than 100 books for both adults and children. Many of his books highlight the achievements of African Americans and cover the history and culture of Africa and the African American experience. His work also included many biographical subjects, ranging from Lena Horne and Hank Aaron to Scatman Crothers and Malcolm X. Most of his writings were for young people. He wrote on a great variety of subjects that introduced young people to the language and cultures of other continents, especially Africa.

Biography Haskins was born in Demopolis, Alabama and spent his childhood in a household with many children. He received his high school education in Boston, Massachusetts. He received a B.A. degree from Georgetown University in 1960, a B.S. degree from Alabama State University in 1962, and a M.A. degree from the University of New Mexico in 1963.

After graduation, before he decided to become a teacher, Haskins moved to New York City and worked as a stock trader on Wall Street. He taught music and special education classes in Harlem. His first book, Diary of a Harlem Schoolteacher, was a result of his experience.

Haskins died in 2005 of complications from emphysema.

Haskins' 1977 picture book The Cotton Club, featuring gangsters, jilted love, and pre-prohibition gangsters, was used as inspiration for the 1984 film of the same name. Bricktop was chosen by the English-Speaking Union to be a Book-Across-the-Sea in 1983. Black Music in America won the 1988 Carter G. Woodson Book Award of the National Council for the Social Studies. He would go on to win the award four more times. His four-book Count Your Way series (Arab World, China, Japan, and Russia) won the Alabama Library Association Award for best work for children in 1988. In 1994, he was presented the Washington Post Children's Book Guide Award.

Selected bibliography Diary of a Harlem Schoolteacher (Grove Press, 1969) Profiles in Black Power (1972) Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback (Macmillan Publishing, 1973) The Story of Stevie Wonder (1975) Pele: A Biography (1976) Scott Joplin: The Man Who Made Ragtime (1978) Voodoo and Hoodoo: The Craft as Revealed by Traditional Practitioners (1978) James Van DerZee: The Picture Takin' Man (1980) Bricktop (1983) Lena Horne (1983) Black Music in America: A History Through Its People (1987) Count Your Way series (1987) Mr. Bojangles: The Biography of Bill Robinson (Morrow, 1988) I Have a Dream: The Life and Works of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1992) One More River to Cross: The Stories of Twelve Black Americans (Scholastic Corporation, 1992) The March on Washington (1994) From Afar to Zulu: A Dictionary of African Cultures (with Joanna Biondi) (1995) African American Entrepreneurs (Jossey-Bass, 1998) Black Stars: African American Military Heroes (1998) Great Ghost Stories (Morrow, 1998) (Compiled by Peter Glassman, Illustrated by Barry Moser) Rosa Parks: My Story (with Rosa Parks) (1999) Conjure Times: Black Magicians in America (with Kathleen Benson) (2001)