All Books
- If Kamala Can: . . . You Can Too!
If Kamala Can: . . . You Can Too!
Carole Boston Weatherford
$18.99The inspirational life of Kamala Harris for kids!
From the newly-announced Young People's Poet Laureate comes a powerful and inspiring picture book that shares how each milestone and moment in Kamala Harris's life represents something that lies within young readers' reach, too―building community, asking for answers, learning from elders, standing up for what's right, pride, friendship, strength, and most of all―knowing that nothing is out of the reach of their future!
- If I Had a Unicorn (If I Had A...Series, 3)
If I Had a Unicorn (If I Had A...Series, 3)
Gabby Dawnay
$15.95From the duo behind the best-selling If I Had a Dinosaur comes this humorous and imaginative celebration of unicorns.
Have you ever given any thought to what the perfect magical pet would be? Giants are far too big, and dragons are way too hot, but what about a unicorn? It might eat all your ice cream for breakfast, but if you get upset about that, it will feed you cotton candy! It can sprinkle star dust on grumpy siblings, carry you to soccer practice on a rainbow, and make sure you dream nothing but sweet and fluffy unicorn dreams.
In this playful tale, a little girl finds out firsthand what it’s like to have a magical creature as a pet.
Illustrated in color throughout
- Black California Gold (The Griot Project Book Series)
Black California Gold (The Griot Project Book Series)
Wendy M. Thompson
$19.95For numerous migrants who ventured westward in the twentieth century in search of greater opportunities, the glitter of California often proved to be mere fool’s gold—promising easy riches but frequently resulting in dispossession and displacement. Poet Wendy M. Thompson is descended from two of these migrant waves—post-1965 Chinese immigrants and Black southerners of the Second Great Migration—whose presence has permanently transformed the region.
In this arresting debut poetry collection, Thompson traces the past and present of California’s Bay Area, exploring themes of family, migration, girlhood, and identity against a backdrop of urban redevelopment, advanced gentrification, and the erasure of Black communities. Traveling down both familiar highways and obscure side streets, her poems map a region where race, class, and language are just some of the fault lines that divide communities and produce periodic tremors of violence and resistance.
Confronting assimilationist myths of the American Dream, Black California Gold depicts a setting that is less a melting pot than a smelting pot, subjecting different ethnic groups to searing trials and extreme pressures that threaten to break them down entirely. Yet, it also celebrates the Black residents of the Bay Area who have struggled to sustain home and hope amid increasingly desperate conditions.
- The High Price of Freweays
The High Price of Freweays
Judy Juanita
$25.00Tartt Award Co-winner. With aplomb and humor and steady eye, this collection looks at the Black experience in Oakland, from the founding of the Black Panthers to present day.
- Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People (Significations)
Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People (Significations)
Tiya Miles
$20.00Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography • A Washington Post Notable Book • One of Smithsonian Magazine's Ten Best History Books of the Year • One of AAIHS's Best Black History Books of 2024
“Though broad strokes of Tubman’s story are widely known, Miles probes deeper, examining her inner life, faith and relationships with other enslaved Black women to paint a deeper, more vibrant portrait of a historical figure whose mythic status can sometimes overshadow her humanity.” –The New York Times
From the National Book Award–winning author of All That She Carried, an intimate and revelatory reckoning with the myth and the truth behind an American everyone knows and few really understand
Harriet Tubman is among the most famous Americans ever born and soon to be the face of the twenty-dollar bill. Yet often she’s a figure more out of myth than history, almost a comic-book superhero. Despite being barely five feet tall, unable to read, and suffering from a brain injury, she managed to escape from her own enslavement, return again and again to lead others north to freedom without loss of life, speak out powerfully against slavery, and then become the first American woman in history to lead a military raid, freeing some seven hundred people. You could almost say she’s America’s Robin Hood, a miraculous vision, often rightly celebrated but seldom understood.
Tiya Miles’s extraordinary Night Flyer changes all that. With her characteristic tenderness and imaginative genius, Miles explores beyond the stock historical grid to weave Tubman’s life into the fabric of her world. She probes the ecological reality of Tubman’s surroundings and examines her kinship with other enslaved women who similarly passed through a spiritual wilderness and recorded those travels in profound and moving memoirs. What emerges, uncannily, is a human being whose mysticism becomes more palpable the more we understand it—a story that offers us powerful inspiration for our own time of troubles. Harriet Tubman traversed many boundaries, inner and outer. Now, thanks to Tiya Miles, she becomes an even clearer and sharper signal from the past, one that can help us to echolocate a more just and sustainable path.
- Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral (Modern Library Torchbearers)
Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral (Modern Library Torchbearers)
Jessie Redmon Fauset
$17.00A rediscovered classic from the Harlem Renaissance about a young Black woman’s journey passing as white in 1920s New York City and her quest for self-acceptance—with an introduction by Glory Edim, founder and author of Well-Read Black Girl.
Jessie Redmon Fauset is one of the literary titans and foremost tastemakers of the Harlem Renaissance—hired by W. E. B. Du Bois to edit The Crisis, she helped popularize writers like Nella Larsen, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, amongst countless others. And yet, her own work has been largely underread in the twenty-first century. Written in 1929, at the height of the Harlem renaissance, Fauset’s celebrated second novel tells the story of Angela Murray.
Growing up in a Black middle-class Philadelphia neighborhood, Angela has always dreamed of becoming a painter. But the profession is largely reserved for white society. So when Angela’s parents prematurely pass away, she moves to roaring New York City, where she befriends elite artists and presents herself as a white woman. While her sister Virginia’s complexion resembles that of their father’s, Angela’s is lighter, like her mother’s, and passing, she believes, is the only way she’ll ever achieve success. Virginia, meanwhile, refuses to bow to racist pressures, and stays in Philadelphia to embrace her heritage with pride.
Each time Angela thinks she’s found artistic, professional, and romantic fulfillment, her ethnicity gets exposed and she finds herself stripped of everything she cares about. As she navigates a world of seduction, betrayal, lust, and heartbreak, she’s forced to consider: What does it mean to find genuine success in a society marred by injustice? Fauset’s “novel without morals” never passes judgement and stays teeming with tenderness. Full of moments that underline the joy of every day Black life, Plum Bun is a pertinent meditation on art, identity, and what it means to find community—as relevant today as ever before. - The Best Jollof Rice Ever
The Best Jollof Rice Ever
Onyinye Iwu
$18.95A warm and funny picture book about the popular West African dish, from Nigerian author Onyinye Iwu, that shows how things work out best when you do them together.
Jollof is a a delicious, spicy rice, and vegetable dish originating in West Africa and now known and enjoyed world-wide. It’s the favorite food of best friends Kwame and Kamsi. But who makes the best Jollof? “My mom,” says Kwame. “No, my mom,” says Kamsi.
The two boys have a great idea. “Let’s each make our own and see whose is really best!” Carefully they pick their ingredients. But Kwame likes playing tricks on Kamsi, and Kamsi likes playing tricks on Kwame. Kamsi secretly adds nettles to Kwame’s Jollof, and Kwame pops a caterpillar into Kamsi’s. Puddle water, fiery ants and old dry chewing gum follow. What a mess! They’ve both made the worst Jollofs ever.
But in the kitchen their moms are sharing the preparation of a real Jollof rice dish, and call the two sad boys in to help. What a difference! “Alone we make good Jollof,” say the moms. “But together we make the best Jollof ever.” And the boys agree–it’s best to work together (but sometimes they still play tricks on each other).
- A Mastery of Monsters
A Mastery of Monsters
Liselle Sambury
Sold outNinth House meets Legendborn in this thrilling first book in a dark academia fantasy series about a teen who’s willing to do anything to find her brother—even infiltrate a secret society full of monsters.
When August’s brother disappears before his sophomore semester, everyone thinks the stress of college got to him. But August knows her brother would never have left her voluntarily, especially not after their mother so recently went missing.
The only clue he left behind was a note telling her to stay safe and protect their remaining family. And after August is attacked by a ten-foot-tall creature with fur and claws, she realizes that her brother might be in more danger than she could have imagined.
Unfortunately for her, the only person with a connection to the mysterious creature is the bookish Virgil Hawthorne…and he knows about them because he is one. If he doesn’t find a partner to help control his true nature, he’ll lose his humanity and become a mindless beast—exactly what the secret society he’s grown up in would love to put down.
Virgil makes a proposition: August will join his society and partner with him, and in return, he’ll help her find her brother. And so August is plunged into a deadly competition to win one of the few coveted candidate spots, all while trying to accept a frightening reality: that monsters are real, and she has to learn to master them if she’s to have any hope of saving her brother.
- Up in Smoke
Up in Smoke
Nick Brooks
$19.99A girl determined to clear her brother's name. A boy determined to keep his out of the line of fire. A secret smoldering between them. This edge-of-your-seat mystery from the author of Promise Boys is perfect for fans of Karen McManus and The Hate U Give.
Unmask a murderer or take the fall.
After Cooper King is pressured by big brother figure Jason to go on a looting spree during a local march, the unthinkable happens: gunshots ring in the air and someone ends up dead. After Cooper flees, the news shows four teens in ski masks near the scene of the murder―Cooper and his friends. Cooper fears the cops will come knocking at his door, and the pressure only mounts when a suspect is taken into custody: Jason.
Monique, Jason's sister and Cooper's longtime crush, is willing to go any length to clear her brother's name. Even if she needs to go into the belly of the beast and confront the killer herself. When she teams up with Cooper, they fall down the investigation rabbit hole and start to fall for each other. But little does Monique know that within this web of deception, Cooper is shrouding the truth that he was there when the shots went off. If the pair fail to uncover the real murderer, Jason will get locked up for a crime he didn't commit―and drag down Cooper with him.
Pick this up if you love:
● high stakes, dual POV thrillers
● page-turning mysteries
● will-they-won't-they romance
● twists and turns you never see coming - The Space Cat
The Space Cat
Nnedi Okorafor
$14.99Invaders from outer space have descended on Nigeria. They have no idea whose home they're messing with.
Ah, yes, the luxurious life of a well-loved cat. It’s the best. And Periwinkle has it the cushiest. But there’s more to this pampered pet than meets the eye. He’s not just a house cat. He’s a space cat. By day, he’s showered with scritches, cuddles, and delicious chicken fillets. By night, he races through the cosmos in his custom-built spaceship.
Between epic battles with squeaky toys and working on ways to improve his ship, Periwinkle is never bored. And when his humans decide to leave the United States and move to the small but bustling town of Kaleria, Nigeria, he’s excited to explore his new home―even after he learns that many Nigerians hate cats. After all, a born adventurer like Periwinkle doesn’t shy away from new experiences. But not everything in Kaleria is as it seems. Soon enough, Periwinkle finds himself on his most out-of-this-world adventure yet, right here on Earth.
- Vivir Bruja (Being Bruja): Una guía para jóvenes (Spanish Edition)
Vivir Bruja (Being Bruja): Una guía para jóvenes (Spanish Edition)
Zayda Rivera
$17.99Para ellos que alguna vez han sentido que tengan magia por dentro, o vínculos inexplicables con el Universo o los ancestros, esta guía de Brujería en español, es una introducción esencial a la práctica derivada de las tradiciones latinas, hispanas e indígenas. Vivir Bruja (edición en español de Being Bruja) es una guía completa e inclusiva centrada en presentar la práctica de la Brujería a jóvenes místicos curiosos. Conozca la breve historia y el origen de la práctica y la palabra bruja, las herramientas necesarias para la práctica, los rituales para principiantes, cómo conectarse con la tierra y sus ancestros, limpiezas y protección espirituales y cómo incorporar la Brujería en su práctica diaria. Aunque es una aceptación de las tradiciones místicas latinas/hispanas, este libro deja claro que cualquiera puede identificarse como bruja, brujo o brujx. Los lectores obtendrán un mayor conocimiento y apreciación de nuestra conexión con el Universo, así como rituales prácticos, como realizar baños y limpias de principiantes. Edición en ingles, Being Bruja, también disponible.
- Rosewater (The Wormwood Trilogy, 1)
Rosewater (The Wormwood Trilogy, 1)
Tade Thompson
Sold outRosewater is the start of an award-winning trilogy set in Nigeria, by one of science fiction's most engaging voices.
*Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, winner
*Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel, winnerRosewater is a town on the edge. A community formed around the edges of a mysterious alien biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry, and the helpless -- people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumored healing powers.
Kaaro is a government agent with a criminal past. He has seen inside the biodome, and doesn't care to again -- but when something begins killing off others like himself, Kaaro must defy his masters to search for an answer, facing his dark history and coming to a realization about a horrifying future.
Tade Thompson's innovative, genre-bending, Afrofuturist series, the Wormwood Trilogy, is perfect for fans of Jeff Vandermeer, N. K. Jemisin, and Ann Leckie.
Praise for Rosewater:
"Smart. Gripping. Fabulous!" —Ann Leckie, award winning-author of Ancillary Justice
"Mesmerising. There are echoes of Neuromancer and Arrival in here, but this astonishing debut is beholden to no one." —M. R. Carey, bestselling author of The Girl with All the Gifts
"A magnificent tour de force, skillfully written and full of original and disturbing ideas." —Adrian Tchaikovsky, Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of Children of Time
The Wormwood Trilogy
Rosewater
Rosewater Insurrection
Rosewater Redemption - Roots: The Saga of an American Family
Roots: The Saga of an American Family
Alex Haley
Sold outBased off of the bestselling author's family history, this novel tells the story of Kunta Kinte, who is sold into slavery in the United States where he and his descendants live through major historic events.
When Roots was first published forty years ago, the book electrified the nation: it received a Pulitzer Prize and was a #1 New York Times bestseller for 22 weeks. The celebrated miniseries that followed a year later was a coast-to-coast event-over 130 million Americans watched some or all of the broadcast. In the four decades since then, the story of the young African slave Kunta Kinte and his descendants has lost none of its power to enthrall and provoke.
Now, Roots once again bursts onto the national scene, and at a time when the race conversation has never been more charged. It is a book for the legions of earlier readers to revisit and for a new generation to discover.
To quote from the introduction by Michael Eric Dyson: "Alex Haley's Roots is unquestionably one of the nation's seminal texts. It affected events far beyond its pages and was a literary North Star.... Each generation must make up its own mind about how it will navigate the treacherous waters of our nation's racial sin. And each generation must overcome our social ills through greater knowledge and decisive action. Roots is a stirring reminder that we can achieve these goals only if we look history squarely in the face."
The star- studded cast in this new event series includes Academy Award-winners Forest Whitaker and Anna Paquin, Laurence Fishburne, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Derek Luke, Grammy Award-winner Tip "T.I." Harris, and Mekhi Phifer. Questlove of The Roots is the executive music producer for the miniseries's stirring soundtrack.
- Tell Me Your Secret
Tell Me Your Secret
Dorothy Koomson
Sold outThe gripping new emotional thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Ice Cream Girls,My Best Friend's Girl and The Brighton Mermaid.
Pieta has a secret
Ten years ago, Pieta survived a weekend with a sadistic serial killer. She never told anyone what happened and instead moved on with her life. But now, the man who kidnapped her is hunting down his past victims meaning she may have to tell her deepest secret to stay alive . . .Jody has a secret
Fifteen years ago, policewoman Jody made a terrible mistake that resulted in a serial killer escaping justice. When she discovers journalist Pieta is one of his living victims, Jody realises she has a way to catch him - even if it means endangering Pieta's life. . .Will telling their secrets save or sacrifice each other?
'Gripping ... full of heart and truth' Caroline Smailes
'I raced through this compelling thriller' Catherine Isaac
'Stunningly tense' Miranda Dickinson
'Honest and raw' Black Girls Book Club
- A Different Drummer
A Different Drummer
William Melvin Kelley
Sold outThe stunning, thought-provoking first novel by a "lost giant of American literature" (The New Yorker)
June, 1957. One hot afternoon in the backwaters of the Deep South, a young black farmer named Tucker Caliban salts his fields, shoots his horse, burns his house, and heads north with his wife and child. His departure sets off an exodus of the state’s entire black population, throwing the established order into brilliant disarray. Told from the points of view of the white residents who remained, A Different Drummer stands, decades after its first publication in 1962, as an extraordinary and prescient triumph of satire and spirit.
- Girls at War and Other Stories
Girls at War and Other Stories
Chinua Achebe
Sold outTwelve stories by the internationally renowned novelist which recreate with energy and authenticity the major social and political issues that confront contemporary Africans on a daily basis.
- Trust: Mastering the Four Essential Trusts: Trust in Self, Trust in God, Trust in Others, Trust in Life
Trust: Mastering the Four Essential Trusts: Trust in Self, Trust in God, Trust in Others, Trust in Life
Iyanla Vanzant
$18.99"Learning to trust is one of life's most difficult lessons. That’s because trust is not a verb; it’s a noun. But what if the real problem is not that we can’t trust other people; it’s that we can’t trust ourselves?"
In this compelling volume, filled with illuminating and heartrendingly powerful stories of broken trust, betrayal, and triumph, Iyanla demonstrates why the four essential trusts—Trust in Self, Trust in God, Trust in Others, and Trust in Life—are like oxygen: without them, none of us can survive. Mastering these four essential trusts requires both a process and a practice: Life gives you the process through your experiences; people provide you the opportunity to practice.
Iyanla explores what trust really is and reveals why some of the most shocking trust violations offer us profound opportunities for personal growth and healing. Her pragmatic trust prescriptions—rooted in self-awareness, intuition, communication, and spiritual practice—will challenge you to face your deepest fears and free you to cultivate new levels of increased authenticity, greater resilience, renewed peace, and joy.
- Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
Robin D. G. Kelley
Sold outFrom the mind of brilliant historian Robin Kelley comes the first full biography of legendary jazz musician Thelonious Monk, including full access to the family's archives, dozens of interviews, and an afterword for Monk’s 2017 centennial.
Thelonious Monk is the critically acclaimed, gripping saga of an artist’s struggle to “make it” without compromising his musical vision. It is a story that, like its subject, reflects the tidal ebbs and flows of American history in the twentieth century.
To his fans, he was the ultimate hipster; to his detractors, he was temperamental, eccentric, taciturn, or childlike. His angular melodies and dissonant harmonies shook the jazz world to its foundations, ushering in the birth of “bebop” and establishing Monk as one of America’s greatest composers.
Elegantly written and rich with humor and pathos, Thelonious Monk is the definitive work on modern jazz’s most original composer.
- I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey (American Century Series)
I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey (American Century Series)
Langston Hughes
$21.00In I Wonder as I Wander, Langston Hughes vividly recalls the most dramatic and intimate moments of his life in the turbulent 1930s.
His wanderlust leads him to Cuba, Haiti, Russia, Soviet Central Asia, Japan, Spain (during its Civil War), through dictatorships, wars, revolutions. He meets and brings to life the famous and the humble, from Arthur Koestler to Emma, the Black Mammy of Moscow. It is the continuously amusing, wise revelation of an American writer journeying around the often strange and always exciting world he loves.
- Nervous : Essays on Heritage and Healing
Nervous : Essays on Heritage and Healing
Jen Soriano
$19.99We all carry history in our bodies.
In her twenties and early thirties, Jen Soriano spent hours lying awake at night, her sleep disturbed by pain that seemed to have no cause. Eventually, she received a collection of diagnoses: C-PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder, peripheral neuralgia, mild dystonia, and social anxiety disorder. Soriano realized that these were all conditions that affect the nervous system. What could have caused these nervous system disturbances in the first place? And why was her own father, a neurosurgeon, unable to help?
Many stories about trauma, mental illness, and chronic pain focus solely on individual paths to healing. In fourteen lyrical essays traversing centuries and continents, Soriano widens the lens to show how we can move from isolated trauma to a networked web of trauma wisdom. Nervous unflinchingly examines legacies of war, racism, colonization, and migration, and navigates both the human body and the body politic by centering neurodiverse, disabled, and genderqueer bodies of color within larger systems that have harmed and silenced them for generations. With Nervous, Soriano boldly invites us along on a watershed journey toward healing, collective safety, and communion.
- Family Spirit : A Novel
Family Spirit : A Novel
Diane McKinney-Whetstone
$26.99The eccentric Mace family believes that the Philadelphia rowhouse they’ve lived in for decades is built on sacred ground, and that the space enhances the clairvoyance passed down to them through generations. But developers, viewing the family’s lifestyle an impediment to gentrification efforts, begin a campaign to displace them. Meanwhile, a prodigal daughter’s return deepens family schisms and exposes betrayals. Can she also help them battle the havoc, both internal and external, that would ruin them?
The Maces believe that a clairvoyant gene, they refer to as the knowing, has been passed down in their family to at least one girl child in every generation from as far back as they can trace—they claim Harriet Tubman in their family tree. Main character Lil, considered the most gifted of her generation, has returned to Philadelphia for cancer treatment. Lil is painfully estranged from her mother and aunts and cousins. Decades ago, after too much brandy and cocaine, Lil acquiesces to her boyfriends’ request to prove her clairvoyance by advising him on a business venture. Doing so, Lil violates a sacred family code because the Maces believe a knowing is an act of community where they agree through storytelling and rituals that invoke the ancestors, that their prognostications contribute to a greater good. Lil’s boyfriend benefits from her breach of faith and in an act of gratitude—and exploitation—books Lil on the Mike Douglass show. Lil’s mother and grandmother are mortified as they watch Lil predict trivialities in a game-like format for some fawning white man, making a mockery of their sacrosanct practice. They sever all contact with Lil and ban her from the family home.
Lil becomes a media darling for a time after her appearance on The Mike Douglas Show, and since then has been paid handsomely as a consultant, advisor, counselor, coach, or similar titles that legitimate entities use to obscure that they’re paying for fortunetelling.
Lil has remained close with her brother Miles and when she returns to Philadelphia, settles into the chaos of his household. Miles is an aspiring novelist in search of a book deal; Mile’s wife Jetta, a once local model, is now trying her hand at interior decorating. Jetta and Miles are teetertottering on Bankruptcy, their marriage is disintegrating, and they can’t agree on how to help their twenty-one-year-old daughter Ayana work through her issues. Lil offers Miles and Jetta money and advice, but she primarily concentrates on Ayana in whom she recognizes her younger self.
Ayana is back home with her parents following an abysmal six years trying to finish college. After a dearth of girl babies on her father’s side, she feels pressured to manifest and carry on the family gift. She’s conflicted. Her entire life, her mother, who doesn’t believe in a clairvoyant gene, has tried to persuade Ayana that she is not like the Maces. Though Ayana craves a normal life and wishes Jetta was right, she knows that she is very much like her father’s people. Plus, she adores them with their unapologetic authenticity, and color-clashing outfits, and free-standing crinkly hair. She loves the stories her grandmother tells about the ancestors, bringing them to life. She especially loves the rituals.
Still, Ayana pretends to her family that the knowing gene has bypassed her, disappointing her grandmother and aunts, greatly relieving her mother, and causing Ayana enormous guilt. She distracts herself from the guilt by jumping in and out of relationships. Her latest guy lives in his car.
More complications arise for Ayana when she thinks she experiences a knowing about Lil’s treatment and doesn’t want to out herself by exposing it.
Meanwhile, the man who exploited Lil years ago has also returned to Philly after a lucrative run as a Black man purveying anti-Black rhetoric. He again contacts Lil for help. As appalled as she is by his brazenness, she considers his appeal an opportunity to right her past wrong and pave a way back home to her mother. She tussles with whether and how to bring him down as she prepares to start her cancer treatment. Ayana begs her to get a second opinion, and Lil relents and discovers the radiologist’s error, and Ayana’s deceit.
Ayana’s unhoused boyfriend learns through his internship with a gentrifying housing development corporation that a campaign is underway to remove Ayana’s grandmother, aunts, and cousins from the home they’ve occupied for decades. The threat fuels the internal struggles of the main characters. Ayana, just trying to live a normal life, and Lil, just trying to keep living, become a formidable duo in the climactic battle to save the family home, their block, their culture, and their traditions.
Each chapter of Family Spirit opens with a text message thread that captures the chapter’s focus—hence the title Family Spirit. Told in an omniscient voice, and primarily set in the current day, Family Spirit dips into the past with depictions of enslaved ancestors through the stories Ayana’s grandmother tells.
- The Vegetarian
The Vegetarian
Han Kang
$18.00Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams—invasive images of blood and brutality—torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It’s a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home. As her husband, her brother-in-law and sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that’s become sacred to her. Soon their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind, and then her body, to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiraling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her, but also from herself.
Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.A Best Book of the Year: BuzzFeed, Entertainment Weekly, Wall Street Journal, Time, Elle, The Economist, HuffPost, Slate, Bustle, The St. Louis Dispatch, Electric Literature, Publishers Weekly
- Prisons Must Fall
Prisons Must Fall
Mariame Kaba
$18.95From Mariame Kaba, New York Times-bestselling author of We Do This ‘Til We Free Us, and social worker Jane Ball comes a powerful book showing the harm that prisons cause and exploring alternatives, gorgeously illustrated by Olly Costello.
Prisons, they do no good.
They do not help.
They do not teach.On a moonlit road, tucked away from prying eyes, a child sees a prison complex―cinder blocks, watch towers, barbed wire. Page by page, we come to see the prison as a child sees it.
Prisons hurt people and leave them lonely, without loved ones to comfort them or lend a listening ear.
As dandelion stars float up in the air, this dreamscape becomes a hope-scape, where love transcends the prison walls. All the families and friends of the people in the prison march and protest in beautiful song, march together to a new way and a new dawn―in this case a cooperative housing and community center, next to a neighborhood greenhouse for restoration and healing. A new world, where connection and repair are fundamental, and even tangible, as people around a table quilt messages, “I hear you. I’m sorry for what I did. How can I make it better?”
In Prisons Must Fall, Mariame Kaba, a longtime activist, together with co-author Jane Ball, present solutions that do not involve incarceration, such as meeting people’s basic needs, restorative justice, and community support―seeds for a safe world. Illustrator Olly Costello provides textured images of a global majority community and a grey, monotone backdrop that is overtaken by joyful colors. A gentle but effective addition to all social justice bookshelves and libraries. Discussion questions included.
Perfect for:
* Parents, teachers, and librarians looking for books on the prison industrial complex and prison reform
* Kids who are interested in fairness and social justice
* Readers who love exceptional and sophisticated illustration - The Racial Contract
The Racial Contract
Charles W. Mills
Sold outThe Racial Contract puts classic Western social contract theory, deadpan, to extraordinary radical use. With a sweeping look at the European expansionism and racism of the last five hundred years, Charles W. Mills demonstrates how this peculiar and unacknowledged "contract" has shaped a system of global European domination: how it brings into existence "whites" and "non-whites," full persons and sub-persons, how it influences white moral theory and moral psychology; and how this system is imposed on non-whites through ideological conditioning and violence. The Racial Contract argues that the society we live in is a continuing white supremacist state.
As this 25th anniversary edition—featuring a foreword by Tommy Shelbie and a new preface by the author—makes clear, the still-urgent The Racial Contract continues to inspire, provoke, and influence thinking about the intersection of the racist underpinnings of political philosophy.
- Wish I Was a Baller
Wish I Was a Baller
Amar Shah
Sold outWish I Was a Baller is part New Kid, part The Tryout, and part Dragon Hoops!
Amar Shah has some story to tell! In 1995, he was a fourteen-year-old aspiring sports journalist (and basketball superfan) angling to get into an Orlando Magic team practice. He did, and it took him on the ride of his life!
Wish I Was a Baller is a graphic memoir chronicling Amar's real-life experiences as a fourteen-year-old sports journalist covering the golden era of the NBA, when he befriended Shaq and hung out with Michael Jordan and the Bulls―all while surviving the high school, dealing with crushes, and friendships being tainted by jealousy.
"An inspiring story of friendship, family, and the swishes and misses of being a kid. Baller soars and scores!" ― Jerry Craft, author of the Newbery Award-winning New Kid
- Queen of the Sea (Cruise Life #1) (Queen of the Sea, 1)
Queen of the Sea (Cruise Life #1) (Queen of the Sea, 1)
Reese Eschmann
Sold outWith all the aspirational elements of Eloise and the heart and emotional intelligence of Ways to Make Sunshine, Cruise Life by Reese Eschmann is sure to set sail for success!
All aboard!
Caitlin and her big brother, Dylan, are still getting used to shuttling between Mom’s new little house and Dad’s fancy new condo after their divorce. But summer means a solid six weeks with her dad. Finally, one toothbrush in one place and all her outfits together! So when her dad announces that he’s gotten a new job on the fanciest, most fun, family-friendly cruise line -- and he’s bringing his kids along -- Caitlin has mixed feelings. For about a minute!
Then off she goes on the adventure of a lifetime on the biggest ship she’s ever seen, the Wandering Princess, which is tricked out to perfection. But soon the pressures of being a crew kid get to Caitlin. She's already had to adjust to two new homes . . . will she be able to make the Wandering Princess her third?
- Player VS Player (Game Quest #1)
Player VS Player (Game Quest #1)
Ash Wu
$6.99A new highly illustrated chapter book series set in both a Minecraft-style video game world and the real world of elementary school where friendships will be tested, courage will be discovered, and teamwork will always win!
Kat, Tai, and Alex are obsessed with the video game Otherworld. They strategize and play together all the time but are famous for their arguments while playing. They can’t help being passionate about what they love!Fresh off their latest fight, the kids discover that their school fundraiser is going to be an Otherworld tournament! All three of them are ecstatic, but they’re too stubborn to form a team while tensions are still running high. They’ll have to set all of that aside, though, when Kat, Tai, and Alex are magically zapped into Otherworld. With zombies to outrun and defenses to build, can the trio get it together long enough to get themselves out or will it be game over for good?
- Malai: Frozen Desserts Inspired by South Asian Flavors
Malai: Frozen Desserts Inspired by South Asian Flavors
Pooja Bavishi
Sold outA celebration of South Asian flavors by Pooja Bavishi, the founder of acclaimed Malai ice cream.
Learn to create frozen desserts at home with this first-of-its-kind South Asian-inspired ice cream cookbook.
Bavishi shares the secrets behind Malai’s beloved flavors, including Rose with Cinnamon Roasted Almonds, Mango & Cream, and Coffee Cardamom. Discover how to make their famous Orange Fennel French Toast and Parle-G Masala Chai Ice Cream Sandwiches.
From ice cream bars and cones to pies, cakes, and cookies, this storied collection of 100 recipes will transform your at-home desserts with sweet, spiced, and flavorful frozen treats.
INSPIRED STORY: A delicious exploration where personal stories and cherished flavor memories are woven into every recipe.
ACCESSIBLE RECIPES & EXPERTISE: The recipes are simple to follow, making it easy to create high-quality ice creams and frozen desserts at home, with tips on essential tools and ingredients for consistently delicious results.
UNIQUE FLAVOR COMBOS: Each recipe features the vibrant flavors and ingredients of South Asian cuisine, showcasing Malai’s signature repertoire—cardamom, rose, almond, pepper, mango, chai, orange, lychee, fennel, and saffron.
SWEETS FOR ANY OCCASION: From dairy and dairy-free ice creams to frozen treats, cakes, baked goods, toppings, and sauces, this robust collection of 100 recipes has something for every craving.
- Derrick Adams
Derrick Adams
Sandra Jackson-Dumont
$79.95The highly anticipated first monograph on one of the most celebrated American contemporary artists
Through portraits, social scenes, photographs, sculptures, and immersive installations, Derrick Adams has developed an artistic practice that jocundly visualizes modern Black American life.
Equally informed by popular culture as he is by the history of modern art, Adams’s work brings the everyday experiences of Black Americans to the forefront, capturing fashionable moments of joy, resilience, and celebration. His artworks are filled with color, energy, and complexity, whether they depict intimate, everyday moments or grand, sweeping statements.
Adams’s first-ever monograph includes 150 of the most significant works from his thirty-year career, along with four newly commissioned texts from cultural luminaries. Filled with beautifully reproduced images and presented in a cloth case with a painting tipped onto the front cover, this stunning book establishes Derrick Adams as one of the most important figurative artists working today.
- Life’s Little Lessons: Bye-Bye Pacifier
Life’s Little Lessons: Bye-Bye Pacifier
Bernette Ford
$8.99Piggy and Ducky are playing a game, but Piggy’s pacifier keeps getting in the way. As the two friends play, will Ducky be able to persuade Piggy to say bye-bye to his pacifier? Adorable characters and a playful story encourage little ones to give up their pacifier, as they easily transition to the next growing-up stage.
- Afro-Decolonial Manifesto (Quilombola)
Afro-Decolonial Manifesto (Quilombola)
Norman Ajari
$21.00Offering a compelling call to arms while challenging the pervasive grip of colonialism on the Black psyche, this manifesto charts a course toward a future defined by autonomy, dignity, and radical liberation.
Delving into the historical currents of resistance—from Negritude to Black nationalism to pan-Africanism—this manifesto unapologetically confronts the insidious nature of modern colonialism. In a world where the very presence of the Black body incites fear and insecurity among white supremacists, Afro-Decolonial Manifesto exposes the fallacy of equating Black existence with reverse colonialism. It challenges the prevailing narratives of gratitude and guilt, asserting the right of the Black diaspora to reclaim its autonomy and dignity, and also examines the effectiveness of movements like Black Lives Matter, advocating for a renewed Black internationalism rooted in Africa’s unity and autonomy.
In a stirring call to arms, Afro-Decolonial Manifesto heralds a new era of resistance, where reparation becomes not just a demand for restitution, but a catalyst for radical change. This volume emboldens Black people to reclaim their narrative, their agency, and their future. It is a testament to the enduring spirit of liberation and the indomitable resilience of Black lives.
- Juneteenth (Revised) (Vintage International)
Juneteenth (Revised) (Vintage International)
Ralph Ellison
Sold outFrom the author of the classic novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison's Juneteenth is a powerful and brilliantly crafted tale that explores themes of identity, race, and ambition.
"[A] stunning achievement. . . . Ellison sought no less than to create a Book of Blackness, a literary composition of the tradition at its most sublime and fundamental."—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Time
The story follows Adam Sunraider, a race-baiting senator, whose life takes an unexpected turn when he calls for Alonzo Hickman, an old Black minister, to be by his side as he faces a mortal wound. As the two men intimately share their stories and memories, the true shape and substance of the past begin to emerge.
Here is Ellison, a virtuoso of American vernacular—the preacher’s hyperbole and the politician’s rhetoric, the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech—at the height of his powers, telling a moving, evocative tale of a prodigal of the twentieth century.
With an introduction and additional notes by John F. Callahan, who first compiled Juneteenth out of thousands of manuscript pages in 1999, and a preface by National Book Award-winning author Charles R. Johnson.
“Beautifully written and imaginatively conceived, Juneteenth, like Invisible Man, deserves to be read and reread by generations.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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