Charles Smith Jr.

Charles R. Smith Jr. is an award-winning author, photographer and poet with over thirty books to his credit. His awards include a Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration (2010) for his photographs accompanying the Langston Hughes poem, My People and a Coretta Scott King Honor Author Award (2008) for his biography on Muhammad Ali, Twelve Rounds to Glory. Many of his books have also garnered reluctant reader awards, proving that kids that don’t like to read, do like to read his books.

Today, Charles combines his passions of writing and photography with a variety of subjects that spark his interest, from basketball with Rimshots, Hoop Kings and Hoop Queens to black history with 28 Days and Brick by Brick, to diversity with I Am America and I Am the World, to name just a few of his books. Many of those books have been brought to life with the launch of his YouTube channel centered around cultivating the mind, the body and spirit. From poetry performance, to favorite books, to photography how-to, to American Ninja Warrior and fitness training and more, Charles is harnessing the power of video to engage readers and educators in new ways.

Charles R. Smith Jr. was born and raised in Los Angeles, California.

A few of Charles’s books