We've gone a long way, but we still have a long way to go." In 1995, Lee & Low Books published her first picture book, "Juneteenth Jamboree", about a summer celebration in memory of the Texas Emancipation. She then wrote a series of board books for preschoolers. In 1998, she co-authored "Somebody's Knocking at Your Door: AIDS and the African American Church", and then published a collection of poetry, "The Tar Baby on the Soapbox". After establishing herself as a versatile writer for both children and adults, she published two nonfiction chapter books before penning her first award-winning children's book, "The Sound That Jazz Makes" (2001), a poem that traces the history of African-American music. Since then, she has continued to write poetry, historical fiction, and nonfiction biographical works for children. She said in a 2008 interview that one of the most important poems she has written was "Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom": "Those inspired words came together with Kadir Nelson's soulful paintings and Ellice Lee's brilliant art direction in a perfect publishing storm. Moses propelled my career to another level." "Moses" has won a Caldecott Award for illustration, as well as an NAACP Image Award for an Outstanding Literary Work for Children, and became a "New York Times" bestseller. In 2008, Weatherford published her first poetic novel for young adults, "Becoming Billie Holiday", about the development of the artist who she refers to as her muse. Weatherford has written multiple articles attacking what she identifies as stereotyped caricatures of black people in East Asian popular culture, with two of the more prominent ones being geared toward anime, and another aimed at the name of a toothpaste brand. In January 2000, Weatherford wrote an op-ed piece that ran in newspapers across Alabama. "Politically Incorrect Pokémon" explained how she believed that Pokémon #124, Jynx, was a negative stereotype of African Americans:  In response to the controversy, Jynx's in-game sprites were given a purple skin color in the American versions of "Pokémon Gold" and "Silver", released in late 2000. By 2002, Nintendo officially redesigned Jynx, changing her skin color from black to purple; this change was not reflected in the animated series until Jynx's purple skin appearance debuted in the episode "Mean With Envy!" (混戦、混乱！