Stamped Q&A with Joel Christian Gill, Illustrator

The Joshua Hyde Public Library is pleased to announce that we are a Great Reads MA 2025 participating partner! This year’s featured book is Stamped from the Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi, adapted and illustrated by Joel Christian Gill. This stunningly illustrated graphic-novel adaptation explores, with vivid clarity and dimensionality, the living history of America, and how we can learn from the past to work toward a more equitable future.

Join us at the library to take part in a live Zoom Q&A with illustrator Joel Christian Gill and libraries across the state. Please bring questions for Joel! Register here to attend: https://joshuahyde.librarycalendar.com/event/stamped-book-discussion-parts-1-3-2132

JOEL CHRISTIAN GILL is Chair of the MFA in Visual Narrative at Boston University and a cartoonist and historian who speaks nationally on the importance of sharing stories. He is the author of the acclaimed memoir "Fights: One Boy's Triumph Over Violence" cited as one of the best graphic novels of 2020 by The New York Times and for which he was awarded the 2021 Cartoonist Studio Prize. He wrote the words and drew the pictures for "Fast Enough: Bessie Stringfield’s First Ride" and the award-winning graphic novel series "Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History," as well as 3 volumes of "Tales of The Talented Tenth," which tell the stories of Bass Reeves, Bessie Stringfield, and Robert Smalls.

If available, each registrant may receive a free copy of the book courtesy of the Massachusetts Center for the Book; these can be picked up any time at the front desk of the library.

The final discussion covering Parts 4-5 of the book will be held on Thursday, October 2 at 6:45pm. Register here to attend: https://joshuahyde.librarycalendar.com/event/stamped-book-discussion-parts-1-3-2133

You may also like the following events from Joshua Hyde Public Library:

• Next Tuesday, 2nd September, 10:45 am, Fall Story Time in Sturbridge
• Next Wednesday, 3rd September, 10:45 am, Fall Baby Time in Sturbridge
• Next Friday, 5th September, 03:30 pm, Back-to-School Bingo in Sturbridge

Also check out other Arts events in Sturbridge, Literary Art events in Sturbridge.