Although the Department of Homeland Security has pulled out most of the ICE agents that began deploying in Minneapolis last December, 650 agents remain, forcing immigrants and their families to continue to shelter in place. In response to the continuing crisis, PEN America is doubling down on its support for young people in the Twin Cities. The literary advocacy nonprofit is co-hosting with Just Us Books and Penguin Random House a virtual event on March 10, beginning at 11 a.m. ET, that will feature live readings by a group of children’s authors from the 2018 anthology We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices, edited by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson. Registration for the webinar is open here.

We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices was produced by the Hudsons in response to the 2016 presidential election and published by PRH/Crown in partnership with Just Us Books. The collection features personal essays, poems, and art by more than 50 children’s book authors and illustrators, all striving to answer the question, “What do we tell our children?” For the webinar, Tameka Fryer Brown, Sharon Draper, Margarita Engle, Sharon G. Flake, Kelly Starling Lyons, Tony Medina, Ellen Oh, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Jacqueline Woodson will read the words they wrote for the anthology.

“People around the country are standing up for democracy, freedom of speech, and equal rights for all of us. Among them are the courageous citizens in Minneapolis and St. Paul,” Wade Hudson said in a statement. “We wanted to show our support by offering love and encouragement to the young people of the Twin Cities.”

Starling-Lyons added, “I’m uplifted by the courageous ways people in the Twin Cities and across Minnesota are showing unity, strength, and kindness and the collective actions they are taking. I keep thinking about the children. They need comfort, messages of hope and resilience, reminders that we see them, love them, and they matter. Our read-in is our tribute to them.”

The event will be supplemented for Twin Cities students by PRH’s donation of 615 copies of the anthology: 110 copies are being donated to the two Twin Cities public library systems for distribution to their branches, and another 505 copies are being donated to local schools on both sides of the Mississippi River, distributed by Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul and AMAZEworks, a company headquartered in St. Paul that works with schools to create anti-bias education curriculums and programs.

Other partners supporting this event include the Children’s Book Council, the Authors Guild, the Brown Bookshelf, Hennepin County Library, and St. Paul Public Library.

This story was updated with more information.