Essence Cain, a Wick outreach student, participated in the 2011 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Ceremony in Cleveland in mid-September. Cain, a sixth-grader at Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts in Akron, recited “In the Flower Market,” a poem she and her classmates wrote for Speak Peace, an international art exhibit that pairs poems with paintings by children. Speak Peace, which will be on tour through 2013, is currently at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Phoenix, Arizona.

For the last two years, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Ceremony has featured a young poet from northeast Ohio along with the winning authors. The awards recognize books that have made important contributions to understanding racism and enhancing appreciation of the diversity of human cultures.