Can We Please Give the Police Department to the Grandmothers

(Hardback)

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Description

Based on the viral poem by Coretta Scott King honoree Junauda Petrus, this picture book debut imagines a radically positive future where police aren't in charge of public safety and community well-being. Petrus first publishedand performed this poem after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. With every subsequent police shooting, it has taken on new urgency, culminating in the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, blocks from Junauda's home. In its picture book incarnation, Can We Please Give the Police Department to the Grandmothers is a joyously radical vision of community-based safety and mutual aid. It is optimistic, provocative, and ultimately centered in fierce love. Debut picture book artist Kristen Uroda has turned Junauda's vision for a city without precincts into a vibrant and flourishing urban landscape filled with wise and loving grandmothers of all sorts.

Reviews

"A reverie of a book, offering criticism delivered with honey about our current state of affairs. Its not at all as far-fetched as it sounds."School Library Journal, starred review

"Unconditional love and community-basedcare lay at the heart of this radical and linguistically delicious picture book that invites conversationsabout relationships in communities of color. Urodas luminous illustrations capture the verve, courage,and sensuality of grandmas (who sometimes look like grandpasa nod to gender inclusivity andcomplex grand-families); the richness of Black and brown communities; and the resources they possessto heal their own wounds."Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Author Bio

Junauda Petrus is a writer, pleasure activist, filmmaker and performance artist, born on Dakota land of Black-Caribbean descent. Her work centres around wildness, queerness, Black-diasporic-futurism, ancestral healing, sweetness, shimmer and liberation. Her debut novel, The Stars and the Blackness Between Them, earned a Coretta Scott King honours. She lives in Minneapolis with her wife and family.