Q&A with Wade Hudson

 

 

 

Wade Hudson is the author of the new children's picture book The Day Madear Voted. His many other books include Invincible. He lives in East Orange, New Jersey.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Day Madear Voted?

 

A: I wanted to share the Black struggle to achieve the right to vote with young readers. My mother’s story was a good way to do that. I remembered it when I was in the process of writing my coming-of-age memoir, Defiant, Growing Up in the Jim Crow South. I wrote a poem about it first. Writing a picture manuscript was a natural follow up.

 

Q: What do you think Don Tate’s illustrations add to the book?

 

A: Don did an excellent job bringing life to the characters. He really captured my mother’s character, hands on the hip and all of that. There is a profound sense of family and community in his illustrations. Don is a really great artist.

 

Q: The Booklist review of the book says, “The straightforward firstperson narrative is engaging, and at the story’s end, the family’s joy is heartfelt and memorable.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I think it’s a good description. I wanted to convey my mother’s determination and pride. But I also wanted to show the simple humility of the people I knew doing that period. It was an unwavering, direct effort to achieve a right that should not have been denied at all.

 

Reviews, though, are often so personal. People see different things, which is a good thing.

Q: What do you hope kids take away from the book, especially given today’s politics?

 

A: I hope they understand that the rights we enjoy today should not be taken for granted. It required struggle, often lives given in that struggle, to achieve many of our rights. The political climate today is a great example of how earned rights can be taken away if we aren’t vigilant.

 

When those struggles for rights, freedom, justice, equality are decades removed, and if they aren’t being taught and shared, succeeding generations will have no appreciation for them. Understanding the past is so important to our moving forward as a loving and caring nation and world.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I have three books coming out in 2026, two picture books and an anthology co-edited by my wife Cheryl. I am always writing. I am working on a novel in verse and several picture book manuscripts.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Well, we have major challenges before us. Our country is under attack on so many fronts. The country we once knew and which we have been working to make better is being changed right before our eyes.

 

We must be up to the challenge. And I believe we will be. It is not just our future that’s at stake, but the future of our children and our children’s children.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Wade Hudson.