Nikki Grimes
Recognized in the Creative Minds Montessori 2026 Teacher’s Choice list.
Nikki Grimes is one of roughly one hundred authors whose work was selected by the Montessori-certified teachers at Creative Minds Montessori for the 2026 Teacher’s Choice list — 120 books chosen across four reading stages, from first lap-reads to first chapter books. The selected book was chosen for how precisely it meets children at a real developmental moment. This recognition cannot be bought: no author or publisher paid to appear on our lists, and we take no commission on any book sale.
About Nikki Grimes
Nikki Grimes is one of American children's literature's most honored poets — winner of the Children's Literature Legacy Award — whose sixty-plus books bring lyric craft to everything from board books to verse novels.
Raised in Harlem and a published poet by thirteen, Grimes read her work publicly as a teenager alongside established writers; she has said she wrote herself into existence in books that didn't yet include girls like her.
Also by this author: Bronx Masquerade · Words with Wings · Garvey’s Choice
Official website: nikkigrimes.com
Selected for the 2026 Teacher’s Choice list
Part of The Best Children’s Books by Age, chosen by the teachers at Creative Minds Montessori in Frisco, TX.