Hazels Best Day, Adiba Nelson
Hazels Best Day, Adiba Nelson
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Hazel's Best Day
A Story of Community, Accessibility, and Pride in Being Yourself

Author: Adiba Nelson

Narrator: Melinda Sewak

Unabridged: 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/30/2026

Synopsis

From the author of Oshún and Me and the artist of Homegrown comes a joyful audiobook that celebrates community and individuality, inspired by real people with disabilities everywhere.

Hazel's Best Day features music and special effects. Listen along and enjoy the fun!

Today is the best day of the year: PARADE DAY! It’s the day that Hazel’s city is a little bit shinier, everyone’s a little bit happier, and she gets to wear her sparkliest, coolest gear to celebrate and attend the disability pride parade.

As Hazel takes listeners on an eye-opening journey through her city on her way to the parade, along the way they will see the various ways in which communities can evolve to be more accessible and safe for everyone. Whether it's putting dips in the curb for people using mobility aids, facilitating the use of service animals, or installing wheelchair accessible playground equipment, there are a lot of ways our communities can be made safer and more accessible for everyone.

Also by Adiba Nelson
Oshún and Me: A Story of Love and Braids (also available in Spanish!)

Also by DeAnn Wiley
Homegrown
Double Dutch Queen

A Macmillan Audio production from Feiwel & Friends

About Adiba Nelson

Adiba Nelson is the author of Oshún & Me, Hazel's Best Day, and Ain’t That A Mother, the memoir that Essence, Bustle, and Shondaland all hailed as a "must read," and subject of the Emmy winning documentary, The Full Nelson. She is also a retired performer, disability rights advocate/activist, freelance journalist and very tired mom! In 2013 she wrote and self-published her first children’s book, Meet ClaraBelle Blue, after not being able to find a children’s book that adequately and appropriately represented her daughter (disabled, Black). Since then Adiba has led numerous workshops and given keynote addresses around the country for parents, educators and education professionals and paraprofessionals, focusing on DEIA from a disability perspective. In 2017, Adiba delivered her first TEDx talk (Skating Downhill: The Art of Claiming Your Life) to a sold-out crowd, and has since joined the NPR affiliate Arizona Public Media as a regular contributor on Arizona Spotlight, spoken at the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of African American History and Culture, and led a memoir master class in sunny San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the request of the poet dubbed the "Maya Angelou of the Millennial Generation," Azure Antoinette.

About DeAnn Wiley

DeAnn Wiley is a self-taught illustrator with a master’s degree in counseling psychology born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. She advocates for social justice from the intersection of multiple identities—Black, Woman, Queer, and Disabled— and she stands in solidarity with other marginalized communities outside of her own. When she’s not painting, she’s learning, growing, and healing, with each phase of her journey depicted in her art. She is the illustrator of Sarah Rising and the Sunday Adventures series; Homegrown is her author-illustrator debut.

About Melinda Sewak

Melinda Sewak (she/her/hers) is an Emmy-nominated story chaser, whose rich, lyrical, and welcoming voice brings life to an ever-growing cast of characters. Her facility with language is deeply immersive and has added dimension to 25+ audiobooks, ranging from children’s fiction to YA to romantic comedy to fantasy. Melinda has been fine-tuning her ability to convey the truth and the comedy in every story by drawing on her own diverse life experiences as a Black, queer creator – having grown up as a first-generation Haitian-American, graduated with a BA in Theater Studies from Yale University, toured as a jazz a cappella singer, worked as a firefighter and rescuer, conducted and published critical care and emergency medicine research, attended medical school, coached as a certified personal trainer, served as a Shakespeare teaching artist, worked in IT as a data and business analyst – and professionally acting on stage and screen. While varied, the through-line has always been a love for people and storytelling – and an always-present desire, evident in the rhythm and curiosity that exude from her voice, to discover, to share, and to connect with story and listener alike.

Reviews

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Quotes

Praise for Hazel's Best Day:

"Matching Nelson’s enthusiastic text, Wiley’s bright, exuberant cut-paper illustrations depict a proud disabled community with an array of skin tones. ... Upbeat and informative." —Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Oshún and Me:

★ "Warm is the best description for Harris’ palette, which captures a wide range of sumptuous brown skin tones, illuminates everything from edge combs to mobility aids (Yadira uses a wheelchair and a walker), and fills each spread with radiant yellows. Complementing the art, Nelson’s text draws from deep cultural roots to enrich the everyday intimacy of wash day and fuel the sparks of community connection. ... Pure, unadulterated joy." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Praise for Homegrown:

"Reading this is a lot like thumbing through a scrapbook, inspiring conversations with young readers as they recognize their own families in the pages. . . Homegrown is a happy depiction of a quiet triumph: how African American families create that safe space called home." —Oprah Daily

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