During this time, Bontemps published numerous novels varying in genre. "Slappy Hooper" (1946), and "Sam Patch" (1951) were two children's books that he co wrote with Jack Conroy. Individually he published "Lonesome Boy" (1955) and "Mr. Kelso’s Lion" (1970), two other children's books. Simultaneously he was writing pieces targeted for teenagers, including biographies on George Washington Carver, Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington. His other pieces of this time were "Golden Slippers" (1941), "Story of the Negro" (1948), "Chariot in the Sky" (1951) and "Famous Negro Athletes" (1964) (Fleming). Critics highly praised his "Story of the Negro", which received the Jane Addams Children's Book Award and was a Newbery Honor Book.