A foreword describes how Marie Bolden became the first Black finalist in a national spelling bee in 1908; the next was MacNolia Cox, in 1936. Eighth grader MacNolia first won her school spelling bee in Akron, Ohio, and then advanced to win the city’s spelling bee. After that, she was off to Washington, D.C., for the National Spelling Bee, but not before being celebrated all over Akron. “A crowd of thousands” and a military band sent her off at the train station. As the train crossed into Maryland, she was forced to move from an integrated train car to a segregated one. And in D.C., she stayed with a local Black doctor, because she wasn’t allowed at the contestants’ whites-only hotel. She and her mother had to take the stairs—not the elevator—to the spelling bee banquet, and during the competition, MacNolia and the only other Black contestant, Elizabeth Kenney, had to sit at a table apart from the white participants. MacNolia made it to the top five before she misspelled “nemesis”—a word that wasn’t on the official list, triggering a protest dismissed by the judges. MacNolia was out of the contest but not before making history, despite the unfair treatment she received. (Ages 6-9)

A Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book

"This moving picture book portrays a girl who met injustice with dignity and excelled."—Booklist (starred review)

From a multi-award-winning pair comes a deeply affecting portrait of determination against discrimination: the story of young spelling champion MacNolia Cox.

MacNolia Cox was no ordinary kid.
Her idea of fun was reading the dictionary.

In 1936, eighth grader MacNolia Cox became the first African American to win the Akron, Ohio, spelling bee. And with that win, she was asked to compete at the prestigious National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC, where she and a girl from New Jersey were the first African Americans invited since its founding. She left her home state a celebrity—right up there with Ohio’s own Joe Louis and Jesse Owens—with a military band and a crowd of thousands to see her off at the station. But celebration turned to chill when the train crossed the state line into Maryland, where segregation was the law of the land. Prejudice and discrimination ruled—on the train, in the hotel, and, sadly, at the spelling bee itself. With a brief epilogue recounting MacNolia’s further history, How Do You Spell Unfair? is the story of her groundbreaking achievement magnificently told by award-winning creators and frequent picture-book collaborators Carole Boston Weatherford and Frank Morrison.