Moja Means One

Muriel Feelings was a children’s author and educator born in Philadelphia in 1938. After earning her degree in art with minors in Spanish and education, she taught in Northwest Philadelphia and New York City, where she joined the Organization for Afro-America Unity and was given the chance to teach for two years in Kampala, Uganda. Upon her return, she married fellow artist and illustrator Tom Feelings, with whom she wrote two books, Moja Means One: A Swahili Counting Book and Jambo Means Hello: A Swahili Alphabet Book. Both titles become Caldecott Honor books and received a number of honors from the likes of the Pennsylvania State Library Association and the American Library Association. She died in 2011 in Philadelphia.

Tom Feelings has received numerous awards for his art in books. In 1972, he was the first African-American artist to win a Caldecott Honor, for Moja Means One: Swahili Counting Book, and in 1975 he won a second Caldecott Honor for Jambo Means Hello: Swahili Alphabet Book, both written by Muriel Feelings. Mr. Feelings taught art at the University of South Carolina. It was during that time he published perhaps his best-known work, The Middle Passage, which won the 1996 Coretta Scott King Award. Mr. Feelings was working on finishing his last picture book, I Saw Your Face, a collaboration with the poet Kwame Dawes, not long before his death in 2003.