Anjella E. Banks writes for children and adults about courage, curiosity, reinvention, belonging, and the pleasures of gathering around a table.
I grew up in Los Angeles in a Creole family with deep roots in Louisiana and New Orleans. At twenty-one, I moved to Sweden, where I built a life, raised four children, taught for many years, and continued doing what I have always done: asking questions, making things, and following ideas wherever they lead.
I am a retired teacher with an MBA and an M.Ed., and I have taught children and young people from the early school years through upper secondary school. My subjects have ranged from English, Swedish and civics to business, entrepreneurship and civil law. Teaching taught me something I still carry into my writing: people understand difficult things best when we make them clear, human and connected to real life.
My books move across several worlds because my interests always have. I write picture books for children, books about human development and the changing world, and cookbooks rooted in family, culture, memory and improvisation.
My children’s books often explore belonging, courage, visible difference, healing, curiosity and the inner lives of children. Nova and the Cracks Between Things grew from questions about safety, freedom and the ways children find their way back toward the world. The Golden Threads in My Skin explores scars, difference and belonging without allowing those differences to define the whole person.
My adult nonfiction looks at what it means to remain fully human as technology, artificial intelligence and social systems change around us. Projects such as The New Self-Made, The Human Compass and Raising Thinkers ask how we preserve judgment, identity, agency, creativity and our capacity to think for ourselves.
Food is another kind of storytelling for me. My cooking books draw from the Creole food of my childhood, Louisiana traditions, family memory, cultural exchange and the habit of improvising with whatever life puts in front of us. Louisiana Family Fusion, Cinnamon Ghost Kitchen, Season of Shadows and Thanksgiving for the Uninvited each approach the table from a different direction, but all of them are ultimately about connection.
I have published I Love My Hooman!, The Cat Granny’s Guide to Maintaining the Peace, and Nova and the Cracks Between Things, with several more books on the way.
I now spend much of my time writing, developing new books, researching ideas, cooking, and creating the kind of work I hope my children, grandchildren and readers will want to return to.