Jewell Parker Rhodes
1 book analyzed
Biography
Jewell Parker Rhodes is an American author born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is the founding artistic director of the Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University, where she taught for decades. Rhodes has written both adult literary fiction and middle-grade novels, often centering African American history and experience. She has spoken in interviews about writing Ghost Boys in direct response to the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, and other Black boys and young men killed in high-profile police or vigilante incidents in the 2010s. The novel was written during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement and the national debate about police violence. Rhodes has said she wanted to write a book that children could read together with the adults in their lives — a text that could open conversations that are difficult but necessary.