Jemele Hill will make her children’s literature debut with a book coming next year.
Workman Kids announced that it will publish the journalist’s Unapologetically You, illustrated by Jessica Gibson, in the winter. The book, the press says, urges children to lean into “who you are and where you come from…becoming fully and unapologetically YOU!”
Hill began her career covering sports for The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, before moving to the Detroit Free Press and then the Orlando Sentinel. In 2006, she started working for ESPN, eventually becoming the co-anchor of SportsCenter. She is currently a contributing writer at The Atlantic and host of the podcast Jemele Hill Is Unbothered.
She published an autobiography, Uphill, in 2022; in a starred review, a critic for Kirkus praised the book as “a frank, fearless, and entertaining memoir.”
Unapologetically You will tell the stories of several women who’ve inspired Hill, including author Zora Neale Hurston, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, singer and actor Mary J. Blige, tennis player Coco Gauff, and journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett. The book, Workman Kids says, “is certain to encourage young readers on their own paths to strength and success.”
Unapologetically You is scheduled for publication on Jan. 12, 2027.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
