Radiant

By Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

A historical middle-grade novel in verse from multiple Coretta Scott King winner Vaunda Micheaux Nelson.

As school begins in 1963, Cooper Dale wrestles with what it means to “shine” for a black girl in a predominantly white community near Pittsburgh. Set against the historic backdrop of the Birmingham church bombing, the Kennedy assassination, and Beatlemania, Radiant is a finely crafted novel in verse about race, class, faith, and finding your place in a loving family and a complicated world.  

Cooper’s primary concern is navigating fifth grade, where she faces both an extra-strict teacher and the bullying of Wade Carter, the only child of a well-to-do white family, whose home Cooper’s mother cleans for extra income. How can she shine when her mother works for the meanest boy in school? To make matters worse, Cooper quietly wishes she could be someone else.

It’s not all bad, though. Cooper and her beloved older sister have fallen for the Beatles, and Cooper is thrilled to have something special they can share. And what she learns about her British idols adds new complexity to Cooper’s feelings about race.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
• Release date: Jan 7, 2025
• ISBN: 9780593855799

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson is the author of The Book Itch, as well as three Coretta Scott King Award-winning books: No Crystal Stair, Bad News for Outlaws, and Almost to Freedom. She is a former youth services librarian in New Mexico. Visit her online at vaundanelson.com.

Book preview

Cover for Radiant, Author, Vaunda Micheaux NelsonBook Title, Radiant, Author, Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, Imprint, Dutton Books for Young Readers

Dutton Children’s Books

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

1745 Broadway, New York, New York 10019

Publisher logo

First published in the United States of America by Dutton Children’s Books,

an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2025

Copyright © 2025 by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

Ebook ISBN 9780593855799

Cover art © 2025 by Erin K. Robinson

Cover design by Kaitlin Yang

Design by Anna Booth, adapted for ebook by Andrew Wheatley

This is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

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Contents

Dedication

Epigraph

Sometimes

Fred

Cooper

The Queen of Darkness

Maxine

Mrs. Keating

Mud Face

The KKK

Kate

Colored

Show Me

Dear Crayola

The Rules of Sundays

Color Blind

Report Card

Friends

Negro

Black

Slavery

At Church

Parents’ Day

Home Decorator

Penmanship

Still Kind of Mad

Nifty

A First

Like a Flame

Walker

Spanish Bar Cake

Sorry

Cooper, Spoiled

Shine, Spoiled

Wade

Whining

Shine Defined

The President, Friday, November 22, 1963

On the Porch

America the Beautiful

After-Church Regrets

Scared, Mad, or Mean?

The Color of Sadness

Pop Quiz

Thanksgiving

Malcolm X

Fooling or Fibbing

Poem

Dreaded Report Card

The Wizard of Oz

Present

Christmas Eve

Christmas

Jacks

Transistor Radio

Happy New Year

After Vacation

Not Miss Gulch

Oz

Ed Sullivan, February 9, 1964

Snap, Crackle, Pop

Everybody Watched

Home Decorator News

Science

Maid

Ashamed?

Friday News

Ed Sullivan, February 16, 1964

New Kid

Winning the Game

Robert/Hakim

Never Once

The Only One

Goodbye JohnPaulGeorgeandRingo, February 23, 1964

If

Rock Collection

Samantha

Free

Meet the Beatles

At Last

If (British Edition)

Whiz Kid

Different

The Carters

Help

Lead Me

Puppies

Not Here

Windows

Proud

Joy

Pointless

Do I Care?

Surprise Note

Tested

The Walk

Mrs. Carter

Where’s Wade?

Regrets

Buddy

Can’t Stop Thinking.

A Whack on the Hand

Nothing to See Here

Relax

Every Detail

Saturday

Trespasses

A Zillion Trillion

After Church

Prayers

A Fresh Start

I’m Ready, but…

A Good Day?

Lost

Be Kind

Keeps Going

Funerals

Honoring

Thanks

A Shining Moment

Something Wrong with the Universe

Last Day

Dorothy

Report Card

Kansas

Here, Boy!

Not Pointless

Night Sky

All Together

Surprise Package

Colors

Me

With Gratitude

About the Author

_149804899_

For—

Family and Friends and Great Teachers.

Faith and Forgiveness.

And My Two Andrews.

When I find myself

getting dull,

Mama taught me

all I have to do is

give myself

a good polishing.

Illustration of a sunburst, this image appears at the beginning of each poem in the book.

Sometimes

Sometimes

I want to be white.

White—

like new snow

or angel wings.

White—

like fresh milk

or cumulous clouds.

White—

like just-washed sheets

dancing on the clothesline.

White—

a full moon

on a clear night.

Fred

That’s dumb.

My big brother, Fred,

laughs at me.

"Nobody’s that white,

except maybe Dracula.

You wouldn’t use a white crayon

to color a white person

in a coloring book,

would you?"

"No.

So why are they called white?

Why not beige or peach?"

Fred shakes his head.

"Don’t know.

They just are.

So why do you want

to be white?"

"I said

sometimes."

"Okay, okay,

why do you want to be white

sometimes?"

"Mama says

I might have to do better

than the smartest white person.

She says

I have to study harder.

I have to shine brighter.

It’s not fair."

Fred shrugs.

"She tells me that, too.

I think she just wants us

to do our best.

But, girl,

you need to grow up.

Life isn’t fair.

Who said it was?

And you better not

let Ma and Pop hear you

talking about wanting to be white."

Mama says

it’s sinful

to want to be something you’re not.

Well, I don’t always,

and I do want to shine,

but sometimes,

sometimes,

I just want to be

white.

Cooper

Fred’s real name is Fredrick.

He was named after Grampa Dale,

Daddy’s dad.

Pap Cooper wanted

to name me James,

after him.

But I was born a girl,

so they gave me Pap’s last name:

Cooper.

Pap says

he likes that even better.

I love my name.

Nobody else I know

has it.

I love my name.

I love my pap.

And I know

Pap loves me, too.

He loves me

just the way I am.

So I would never tell him

that, sometimes,

I want to be white.

White—

Like

the

kids

at

school.

The Queen of Darkness

All the kids call

Mrs. Keating

the Queen of Darkness.

Just my luck

to be in fifth grade this year

and get the meanest teacher

in the school.

Dag!

Kids say

she’ll whack your hand

with a ruler

if you make her mad,

even if you didn’t mean to.

If I can really shine,

maybe they’ll let me skip

the fifth grade

and go straight on to sixth

where I’d have Mrs. Hibbs,

the Queen of Lightness,

the Queen of Niceness.

If only I could shine.

Maxine

Sometimes

I wish I was my sister.

Maxine is so pretty

(everybody says so)

and she can wear white pants

and not get them dirty.

She’s a wonder.

She taught me

to read

and write

and add

and subtract

before I even started school.

She used to make a plate

with apple slices

or peanut butter crackers

to put beside our bed.

I would have my snack

while Mama sat

on the top step and read

us Uncle Wiggily stories

or Daddy told us

poems he knows by heart.

Maxine would make sure

I didn’t forget

to brush my

Reviews for Radiant

[jennybeast · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful book that just flows -- open it and fall in. I love Cooper's inherent fairness, her empathy, her thoughtful reactions, her joy. The moments when she breathes in goodness to deal with the hard crap that is endemic racism. The moments when she feels a pure and shining love for her family. Her relationship with a hard but fair teacher. It's a book that's packed with learning how to handle yourself in 5th grade. It's a book about finding personal ways to shine. Radiant in being as well as name.

[sjgirl-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Radiant, set in 1964, is told in verse, nothing flowery or intimidating, it reads simply and quickly while still hitting the emotions in all the right places.

As an adult reader I wouldn’t have minded a bit more historical detail, but I think for the intended middle-grade audience, this was just about right in the way it touched on historical events (the church bombing in Alabama, JFK’s assassination) in a way that didn’t get bogged down in long dense info dumps that could cause a kid reader’s interest to wane.

Cooper, our sweetheart of a main character, is the target of racism to the extent where at times she wishes she were white, all of the moments related to that are a tough read as they should be, and still sadly relevant. There were a few moments in Cooper’s dealings with a racist classmate where I did wonder whether there are many kids or even adults for that matter, who would handle that with as much I guess, generosity, as Cooper does, but regardless of how realistic that would be for most flawed human beings to live up to, Cooper’s certainly a good example to aspire to, even if you can’t get there quite as consistently as she does.

I liked that a certain situation was presented as more complicated than just being entirely about Cooper’s empathy for someone else, something like that could make anyone contemplate something similar happening in their own life and this did a good job of showing how anxiety inducing those kinds of thoughts can be no matter your age.

All I’ve talked about here so far are the more difficult things Cooper’s going through over the course of this novel, but the author does include some nice moments with a teacher, friends, and with Cooper’s family (some involving a love for the Beatles), that add enough light for this to feel like a balanced read.