By Elizabeth Wulfhorst
WASHINGTON – Sean Qualls is a soft-spoken man but his art speaks volumes.
And now Qualls, a New Jersey native who has been illustrating children’s books for over two decades, has recently released the first book he’s both written and illustrated, the middle-grade “Fros, Fades, and Braids,” with HarperCollins. The book was featured at this year’s National Book Festival, organized by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., where Qualls also spoke on a panel, “The Stories of What We Love: Illustrated Black History,” with author Kadir Nelson.
“Fros, Fades, and Braids” explores the history of Black hair in America, and features illustrations inspired by print ads in Ebony magazine and commercials that aired during TV shows like “Soul Train” in the 1970s and 80s.
“I really wanted to write something that I thought was unique to the American narrative and something that I didn’t think was really documented in a historical book, especially for children,” Qualls said. “I wanted to do it in a way that felt very personal and intimate, but also fun and engaging.”
The personal touch came from Qualls’ childhood as “a kid who always had hair problems,” who grew up “feeling like I was kind of the weirdo with weird hair or someone who didn’t groom his hair,” he said.
Qualls set aside time to write every day in a cafe and, he said, “the voice of the story came to me immediately.”
He referenced the 2009 Chris Rock documentary “Good Hair,” noting how there were many more aspects to the conversation around Black hair he wanted to explore. “The love and the expression and the joy, but also the ability to sort of see all the complexities of it, really sort of fueled me to write it,” Qualls said.
Finding out the book was being featured during the National Book Festival was “such a special moment,” he said. “I think we’re definitely living in unique times right now, and it means a lot to have people come together to discuss literature, children’s literature, historical literature.”
The festival is a free, one-day event held yearly that offers attendees the chance to interact with authors through panels, book signings and many other activities. It’s like Comic-Con for book lovers. This year, 80 authors offered insight into topics as varied as writing unique detective characters and “meet-cute” mishaps to film preservation, biographies, science fiction, poetry and much more. Each U.S. state and territory had a booth highlighting an adult and a children’s author from that state (New Jersey’s were John McPhee and Barry Wittenstein). Featured talks included astronaut Reid Wiseman, actor and author Kate McKinnon, director Martin Scorsese and actor, singer and author Cynthia Erivo, among others.
“I think the ability for us to communicate on a human-to-human level about our ideas and stories, and just expand voices and narratives is so vitally important,” Qualls said about the event. “Something special happens when people get together to celebrate all of that.”
A Creative Journey
“I think kind of my earliest memories were of maybe doing coloring books,” Qualls said. He was “fascinated with handmade things,” including the hooked rugs his grandmother made and the ceramics his mother painted.
“(Art) seemed like something that transported one from the everyday into this magical realm. And so, at an early age, I had the impulse to draw and scribble and just repeat things that I saw around me,” he said.
The urge to draw and create never left him, even though art wasn’t necessarily encouraged at home. Qualls even said an aunt recently shared that the family “didn’t think… being an artist was going to work out” for him.
But art was a way for Qualls to process his emotions, which led him to stick with it.
And as many successful individuals often point out, it was teacher encouragement that helped Qualls hone his art and believe in his ability. During a sixth-grade group project to write and illustrate a book, two classmates left him to do all the work. Qualls did such a good job that his teacher suggested he consider doing it for a living.
In high school, Qualls had an art teacher who “really was an enthusiast in the sense that he wanted to and encouraged his students to pursue art,” he said. As a student, he entered national poster competitions and the Teen Arts Festival.
By the time he was a senior in high school, Qualls was taking three art classes and became president of the art club, which he helped found.
“Just having someone outside of my family who believed in me” was monumental, he said.
Qualls attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn as a fine arts and illustration major before leaving school to work. He took continuing education classes in illustration and grew his portfolio while considering designing adult book jackets. Years into the process, he started creating postcards to send to his mailing list of about 4,000 contacts.
The response to those postcards was “unanticipated,” he said, as publishers began reaching out about illustrating children’s books.
While it didn’t work out with the first publisher he met, Qualls was eventually given a manuscript about a little boy and his grandmother, and immediately connected it with his own memories and emotions about his grandmother.
“Since then, I’ve probably been working on, or at least signed up to work on, three or four books at a time,” he said. He has illustrated books for Spike Lee, Toni Morrison, Questlove and many others.
Qualls’ work is reminiscent of the cutting-and-pasting children learn in school, taken to another level. “I paint large sheets of paper with different colors, multiple colors, multiple textures, color on top of color, and I have an archive, and I just sort of build on that,” he explained. When he has a new project, he chooses his palette from those papers.
“So much of what I do is about tapping into my early years and my childhood,” he said.
“That process, it’s just joyful for me, and I think it, on some level, taps into my childhood experience of working with simple materials, drawing, cutting shapes, pasting down, and then oftentimes I’ll draw on top of things.”
While working, Qualls listens to music while also listening to audiobooks or podcasts, which may sound overwhelming but, it “really helps me sort of keep my critical mind busy, and so I can get more into the flow state,” he said.
“Working in this process brings joy to me, and it makes every project exciting,” Qualls said.
An Artist Becomes
a Writer
While illustrating is Qualls’ first love, written words “fuel the ideas that become the visuals” he creates. So writing the words himself is important. “When it’s me directly using the words that I’ve absorbed over my lifetime to create a project, it’s just an even more fulfilling process,” he said.
“I think as illustrators, it’s a kind of a weird position to be in because we’re usually interpreting someone else’s words to tell a story, and while there’s a degree of authorship to that, it’s not the whole picture,” he said.
He called the opportunity to write and illustrate his own stories a “privilege.”
Qualls second book, “The Music Is the People,” will be released early next year. It’s a picture book for younger readers about the history of African American music to the present. He said it’s a “personal and universal experience of music. How music helps us all process the difficult times and difficult feelings, but also how it’s a tool for us to celebrate and a vehicle for us to express our joy, either through making it or listening to it or dancing.”
The article originally appeared in the August 27 – September 2, 2026 print edition of The Two River Times.
