Anne-Marie Akin is a library consultant and musician at Educare Chicago. She also is a co-chair of the Diverse Books for All Coalition, an initiative founded by 27 nonprofits and membership organizations, including Start Early, to double the number of affordable, quality children’s books by and about diverse cultures and races over the next five years.

As a faculty member at the Old Town School of Folk Music, Anne-Marie pioneered a robust early childhood outreach program. Librarians and teachers may know her for the children’s tune “The Milkshake Song”. Anne-Marie is a singer-songwriter and has worked with The Lullaby Project, a project of Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, and brought the project to Educare Chicago. She also is an author; her essays and poems appear in several collections.

Anne-Marie holds a bachelor’s degree in theatre and media arts from Rhodes College, and a master’s degree in creative writing from Northwestern University. She lives in Chicago with her kind, smart teenage daughters who give her hope for the future.