Lea Lyon is a children’s book author and illustrator, active in the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She has illustrated six award-winning trade picture books and a middle grade novella and written a picture book. Her most recent books include It Rained Warm Bread, by Hope Anita Smith with Gloria Moskowitz-Sweet (illustrated by Lyon)—which garnered a starred review from Kirkus, a 2019 Best Nonfiction Book in Verse for Young Readers from Kirkus, and an ALA Notable book for 2020—and Ready to Fly: How Sylvia Townsend Became the Bookmobile Ballerina, by Lyon and A. LaFaye—picked up by Scholastic Book Club and included in the Independent Bookstore Kids Next list.
I am so grateful to Lea for writing this book about a little remembered and important part of history. James Thompson is one of my heroes and deserves his day in the sun. It will be so satisfying to know that through her work that will finally happen. I am so grateful to Lea for writing this book about a little remembered and important part of history. James Thompson is one of my heroes and deserves his day in the sun. It will be so satisfying to know that through her work that will finally happen. --Betty Reid Soskin, retired (at age 100) National Park Service Ranger and civil rights activist Lea Lyon has provided an interesting, well researched, and well written book on the Pittsburgh Courier's Double V campaign for more black rights in World War II. She does an excellent job of explaining a press campaign that deserves more public attention than it has received. Of particular significance is the amount of information on James G. Thompson, whose 1942 letter to the newspaper sparked the campaign. No other historian has delved as deeply into him as Lyon, and the result is a better understanding of a person who became very important in black history. Lea Lyon has provided an interesting, well researched, and well written book on the Pittsburgh Courier's Double V campaign for more black rights in World War II. She does an excellent job of explaining a press campaign that deserves more public attention than it has received. Of particular significance is the amount of information on James G. Thompson, whose 1942 letter to the newspaper sparked the campaign. No other historian has delved as deeply into him as Lyon, and the result is a better understanding of a person who became very important in black history. --Patrick S. Washburn, Professor Emeritus of Journalism, Ohio University