did you know?
- The Color of Water has sold almost two million copies worldwide, spent more than two years on the New York Times Bestseller List, and is published in more than 16 languages.
- James McBride's second book was Miracle at St. Anna. The book became a Disney/Touchstone film in 2007, directed and co-produced by Spike Lee.
- James McBride has also written for the Washington Post, People, the Boston Globe, Essence, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times.
- James McBride is a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio. There he studied composition at The Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
- James McBride received a Master's in journalism from New York's Columbia University at the age of twenty-two.
- James McBride is also a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.
- James McBride has also written Song Yet Sung, a powerful story about a runaway slave and a determined slave catcher.
- McBride's April 2007 National Geographic story "Hip Hop Planet" has been regarded a respectable piece on African American music and culture.
- In addition to being a highly successful author, James McBride is also an accomplished musician. He has written songs (music and lyrics) for Anita Baker, Grover Washington, Jr., and Gary Burton, among others.
- McBride also served as a tenor saxophone sideman for jazz legend Little Jimmy Scott. His "Riffin' and Pontificatin'" Tour, a nationwide tour promoting reading through jazz in high schools and colleges, was featured as a Comcast documentary in 2003.
- For his accomplishments as a composer in musical theater, McBride has received the American Musical Theater Festival's Stephen Sondheim Award for his jazz/pop musical Bobos. He has also won the Richard Rodgers Foundation Horizon Award.
- McBride has 11 siblings. He is now married with three children.
- In 2005 McBride released his first album, "The Process - Volume 1," part of an upcoming documentary about the lives of "ordinary" jazz musicians.
- McBride's The Color of Water initially began as a tribute column for the Boston Globe in 1981 for Mother's Day. In response, McBride was flooded with letters from readers, thus spawning the initial idea for the book.
- In 1984 McBride followed Michael Jackson's "Victory" tour for seven months for People magazine. He later indicated that the highest point for him was meeting Michael's mother, not Michael himself. Said McBride, "Beneath her outward shyness is a woman of fierce pride, resolve and character. She holds that family together. America needs a few more mothers like that."
