Tanita S. Davis, author of Partly Cloudy and Serena Says, has written another funny, warm story featuring middle school and family life—all about the complex calculations it takes for everyone to balance the equations of their lives and what it takes to be part of a team while handling a learning disability. This middle grade novel is perfect for fans of From the Desk of Zoe Washington and A Good Kind of Trouble.

Seventh grader Henrietta Weldon gets to switch schools—finally! She’ll be “mainstreaming” into public school, leaving her special education school behind. She can’t wait for her new schedule, new friends, and new classes.

Henri’s dyscalculia, a learning disability that makes math challenging to process and understand, is what she expects to give her problems. What she doesn’t expect is a family feud with her sister over her new friends, joining the girls’ soccer team, and discovering poetry. Henri’s tutor and new friend, Vinnie, reminds her to take it slow. One problem at a time.

If Henri Weldon has twenty-four hours in a day, and she has two siblings who dislike her four new friends, two hours of soccer practice, seven hours of classes, and three hours of homework . . . she has:

A.       No free time

B.        No idea how to make everyone happy

C.        No time to figure it out, Henri Weldon!

"Electrifying and smart, Who Knows You By Heart is part thriller, part prophecy, part gift and all the way live."--Junot Diaz

“Scintillates with light and warmth…And it’s hilariously funny. The view of Big Tech through Olivia the coder’s eyes is delicious. I absolutely loved this book.” —Alison Bechdel

Part social thriller, part modern love story, Who Knows You by Heart is a sly, witty, and endlessly discussable tale of Big Tech, new money, relationships, race, and discovering what’s real in an age of artificial intelligence.

Octavia Crenshaw, a Jamaican-American coder living in Manhattan, is broke, burned out, and haunted by her parents’ deaths. Desperate to pay off some debts, she ditches her nonprofit job for a high-paying gig at Eustachian Inc., a Big Tech company that specializes in audio entertainment. Language, communication, human connection—these are the markets Eustachian wants to revolutionize...and dominate.

Octavia finds herself swept up in the world of the Tech Titans, with its lure of instant riches and its seemingly limitless future. But as one of Eustachian’s very few Black employees, Octavia is uncomfortably aware of things that seem to escape her coworkers: unexplained tech glitches, cryptic remarks, a mysterious secret floor in the corporation’s gleaming headquarters.

But she sets her suspicions aside when she’s recruited by another Black coder—the infuriating but attractive Walcott—to collaborate on a secret project code-named Zion. Zion is a new kind of AI-powered storytelling, one that’s programmed to be free from the racist and sexist biases that plague other AI products. Zion could launch Eustachian into a bold new future and make its developers super rich while righting all kinds of injustices. Octavia and Walcott’s excitement over their creation sets off romantic sparks between the two of them, until they discover a toxic secret about their employer—something that they can’t unlearn, or overlook, but must overcome.

From New York Times-bestselling author Janae Marks comes a heartfelt middle-grade novel about a tween who uncovers a deep family secret after she moves into her estranged half-brother’s guardianship following their mother’s accident.

Addy Thompson’s life is untangling: Her mom is in a coma following a car accident, and now she’s in the custody of her estranged half-brother—although Julian feels more connected by DNA than real family. On top of that, her two best friends, Thea and Luz, are fighting, and she’s not sure she’s ready for her first ever swim meet. Addy feels helpless in the middle of everything.

As Addy gets to know Julian better, more questions arise. Why haven’t they spent time together before now? And why won’t he visit their mom in the hospital? When Addy discovers an old journal in her mom’s closet, it sends her on a journey to uncover the truth.

But revealing the past comes with big feelings and bigger secrets, and when Addy gets Thea and Luz involved in her scheme, the ties of their friendship stretch to their limit. Even worse, Julian refuses to talk about their mom, and Addy’s search for the truth threatens their growing relationship.

All Addy wants is to knit the people she loves back together. But what if she’s the one tearing them apart?

Actress, comedian and mother Tisha Campbell (Martin, My Wife and Kids) shares her entertaining, emotional, and sometimes comical journey navigating her son’s Autism diagnosis, offering realistic insight and personal stories of the challenges and triumphs that come with raising a child on the spectrum.

This heartfelt and humor-filled memoir takes readers on an emotional rollercoaster as Tisha Campbell, actress, mother, activist, shares her journey of raising her son, Xen, who was diagnosed with autism. With raw honesty and a touch of wit, Tisha recounts the challenges, triumphs, and unexpected moments of joy that have defined her family's life. From the initial shock of the diagnosis to navigating the labyrinth of therapies, schools, and societal misconceptions, Tisha's story is a testament to resilience, love, and the power of community.

Tish's quick wit and candid observations bring levity to even the most trying situations. Whether she's recounting her son's uncanny ability to identify Winnie the Pooh characters at five months old or her own misadventures in advocating for his needs, her warmth and humor shine through the story, making it both relatable and uplifting.

At its core, this memoir is a love letter to Xen, celebrating his unique spirit and the lessons he has taught his family about patience, acceptance, and the beauty of individuality. It's also a rallying cry for parents, caregivers, and advocates, offering hope and practical insights for navigating the world of autism.

With its blend of humor, heart, and unflinching honesty, The A Word is a poignant reminder that even in the face of adversity, love and laughter can light the way. Tisha's journey is not just about overcoming challenges—it's about embracing them and finding joy in the unexpected.

A deeply reported and personal exploration of identity, resilience, and belonging from one of the most influential Spanish-language journalists in the world, Essential offers a nuanced, urgent portrait of what it means to be Latino in today’s America and the contradictions of being vital to a country that still struggles to recognize you fully.

In a country still grappling with its sense of identity and the question of who belongs, Essential explores: What does it mean to be Latino in America today?

Blending years of on-the-ground reporting with personal reflection, Enrique Acevedo offers a layered, urgent portrait of a community both shaping and being shaped by the nation’s future. Latinos comprise nearly one in five Americans, including more than eleven million in California alone. Yet their place in the national conversation is too often reduced, politicized, or misunderstood, especially when filtered through the narrow lens of immigration.

With President Trump back in office and immigration again a defining fault line in American politics, this book arrives at a pivotal moment. From frontline workers during the pandemic to families navigating the opaque machinery of deportation, Essential explores labor, identity, resilience, and the quiet contradictions Latinos carry every day. It challenges the false choice between assimilation and exclusion. It calls on the country to expand its definition of belonging to reflect its people's full complexity and history.

Part memoir, part chronicle, Essential is a powerful testament to the stories we tell about who we are and who we still have the chance to become.

The long-awaited memoir by the comedy legend and author of multiple New York Times bestsellers, a beautiful and mesmerizing book that reveals as never before his childhood in South Central Los Angeles, his time in the infamous Bloods gang, and how humor became his salvation.

I learned a joke could be more than humor. It was body armor. Could be a spell. Could be a sword and a shield, all in one breath.

He was always Charlie’s Boy—even before he found his name, his voice, his fame.

In this raw, cinematic, and deeply personal memoir, acclaimed comedian and cultural critic D.L. Hughley documents his rise from the streets of South Central Los Angeles to the national spotlight—and the man who quietly stood behind him through it all.

While his mother’s wrath shaped his early years with fear and rejection, it was Charlie Hughley—a soft-spoken bag handler at the Los Angeles Airport—who raised D.L. and taught him how to survive through tough love and sacrifice. Though he was not D.L.’s biological father—a fact only revealed when D.L. was ten—Charlie gave his boy the only thing he truly needed: a sense of being seen.

It was a time when gangs ruled the streets of South Central, and D.L. rose through the ranks of the Bloods. But when his mother’s car was shot up and dead roses were left on his doorstep—signaling he was marked for death—D.L.’s mother knew that he couldn’t stay in Los Angeles. So, D.L. boarded a bus to Ohio and left behind everything he understood. It was exile. But it proved to be a fresh start.

This is not just a coming-of-age story. It’s the story of how one man found his voice by being raised in silence—and how he learned to get on stage and turn pain into punch lines. Through storytelling that’s both unsparing and funny, Charlie’s Boy is a tribute to the man who never asked for one, and a reckoning for the boy who had to wrestle for love, identity, and truth.

The very first story collection from the critically acclaimed, visionary author of the novels Lakewood, The Women Could Fly, and Meet Me at the Crossroads

Over three genre-busting novels, Megan Giddings has emerged as one of the most celebrated and inspiring authors at work today. She has been compared to such luminaries as Ursula K. LeGuin, Octavia Butler, and Jordan Peele, yet her voice is singular and distinctive.
Now, at long last, she presents us with a story collection that fully demonstrates the breadth and sophistication of her talent. Over the course of thirteen stories, we navigate complex family relationships, romances both troubled and charmed, and events that straddle the supernatural and the all-too-real. Among the disintegrating husbands, seductive ghosts, and artists communing with the supernatural to find their voices, Giddings establishes herself as a true investigator of modern yearning. Funny, poignant, exquisitely-rendered, and deeply moving, the stories in Black Arts further establish Megan Giddings as one of our most eagle-eyed and groundbreaking literary talents.

From acclaimed author K. Ancrum, on the National Book Award longlist for The Corruption of Hollis Brown, and Lambda Literary Award winner for Icarus, comes a queer romantic horror thriller that is a love letter to Frankenstein about the consequences of our decisions, the legacy of family, and the depths we’ll go to be forgiven.

Victor Frankenstein is a young, wealthy, and brilliant prodigy who wants nothing more than to prove himself and change the world. His plan to right what he feels is wrong with the world? Reanimation of the sick and dying, bringing them back to life. But no one will give him the chance to prove his genius. However, one drunken night a bet is made, one that will cause Victor to do the unspeakable: take a teen boy from a small, neighboring village, and experiment on him under the dark of night. Elias Hilfiker. The boy who would become his monster. His curse. When Elias awakens, his voice is gone, his skin is stitched, scarred, and branded with strange symbols, and he’s abandoned by his loved ones. Meanwhile, Victor embarks on a journey to discover how to reverse the horror he’s unleashed, visiting dark alchemists in lands far and wide, gripped by fear and guilt.

But Victor’s act of resurrection creates a tether to Elias, leaving them feeling each other’s pain, joy, and regret, as the two each seek a way to end the other. As the two bound boys continue to search for answers and forgiveness, vengeance and mercy, the boundaries between what makes a man and what makes a monster will only get more blurred.

From R.F. Kuang, the acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling author of Katabasis and Yellowface, comes a wryly humorous and profoundly moving coming-of-age novel that grapples with grief, language, and culture shock--all set against the backdrop of an unforgettable summer in Taipei.

College freshman Lily Chen is off to spend the summer in Taipei at an intensive language program like so many Chinese American students before her, hoping to connect with the culture she inherited but never fully understood. But a promising start quickly unravels. Her classes are grueling, her roommate is driving her insane, and a reckless trip to the hot springs with a guy she barely knows soon has her classmates viciously gossiping. She feels adrift, a foreigner in a country she thought would feel like home.

Then shocking news arrives: Lily's grandfather has passed away. The loss forces her to grapple with now-unanswerable questions about her family history. As Lily grieves, she's drawn into a journey of self-discovery--piecing together memories, stories, and silences over a series of hilarious and devastating attempts at connection.

Taipei Story asks: What if the diaspora fantasy of homecoming never comes true? What if learning a language can't bring you any closer to the people you're trying to reach? What if you search for your family's history, but your family doesn't want to share? What if you wait too long to ask the right questions? As Lily struggles for answers, her summer becomes a poignant search for understanding--of herself, her family, and the meaning of home.

Step into the vibrant streets of the 1970s Bronx and witness the exact moment a global movement began. Birth of a Culture gives you a front-row seat to the origins of hip-hop, told through the firsthand experiences of Grandmaster Flash—one of the founding pioneers who helped build the culture from the ground up.

When you read this book, you feel the pulse of the neighborhood parks, hear the scratch of the vinyl, and experience the raw energy of a community turning its daily struggles into a revolutionary art form. This is not just a collection of dates and facts. It is a deeply personal narrative written by Grandmaster Flash and coauthor Robert “Scoop” Jackson that brings you into the rooms and onto the streets where music changed forever.

What you will discover inside:

* An Authentic Pioneer Perspective: Read a personal narrative from the mind of Grandmaster Flash, complete with untold stories of the earliest park jams and legendary club nights.
* The Blueprint of a Movement: Understand exactly how DJing, MCing, break dancers, and graffiti artists merged to form the core pillars of a massive cultural shift.
* Untold History Revealed: Uncover the real stories behind the evolution of hip-hop and culture.
* Timeless Cultural Relevance: Explore how the innovation born in the Bronx directly influences the music, art, and social movements you interact with every day.

This book cuts through the myths to deliver an authentic, chronological history—bringing you alongside Grandmaster Flash as he invents the groundbreaking Quik Mix Theory and helps transform a landscape of social unrest into a global movement. With turntables and microphones, the young innovator sparked a cultural explosion that quickly swept the world.

More than a timeline of musical milestones, this Birth of a Culture explores the profound power of community, resilience, and unapologetic creativity. The challenges and triumphs detailed within these pages mirror the social issues we still face, proving that music remains our most vital tool for connection and change.

Whether you are a lifelong hip-hop fan, a dedicated music historian, or simply someone who loves powerful stories of cultural triumph, this book belongs on your shelf. Once you’ve read Birth of a Culture, you can say you know the undeniable heartbeat of hip-hop's true origins.

From R.F. Kuang, the acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling author of Katabasis and Yellowface, comes a wryly humorous and profoundly moving coming-of-age novel that grapples with grief, language, and culture shock—all set against the backdrop of an unforgettable summer in Taipei.

College freshman Lily Chen is off to spend the summer in Taipei at an intensive language program like so many Chinese American students before her, hoping to connect with the culture she inherited but never fully understood. But a promising start quickly unravels. Her classes are grueling, her roommate is driving her insane, and a reckless trip to the hot springs with a guy she barely knows soon has her classmates viciously gossiping. She feels adrift, a foreigner in a country she thought would feel like home.

Then shocking news arrives: Lily’s grandfather has passed away. The loss forces her to grapple with now-unanswerable questions about her family history. As Lily grieves, she’s drawn into a journey of self-discovery—piecing together memories, stories, and silences over a series of hilarious and devastating attempts at connection.

Taipei Story asks: What if the diaspora fantasy of homecoming never comes true? What if learning a language can’t bring you any closer to the people you’re trying to reach? What if you search for your family’s history, but your family doesn’t want to share? What if you wait too long to ask the right questions? As Lily struggles for answers, her summer becomes a poignant search for understanding—of herself, her family, and the meaning of home.

For fans of The Wild Robot and Rebecca Stead, a middle grade novel that explores what makes us human—and what it means to be irreplaceable.

Summer 2.0 is not here to replace Summer Dillon.

As an android, she’s a little different: a control panel instead of a brain, a mechanical heart instead of a physical one. She can't quite replicate Summer’s airy laughter, and she can only construct her personality with 93% accuracy.

But Summer 2.0 loves being alive. She loves living with Summer's family, trying new flavors of ice cream, and going to school—just like the real Summer would have.

Summer 2.0 knows she is not here to replace Summer Dillon. She is here to continue her. And as long as Summer 2.0 does just that—remains the perfect Summer—she’ll be able to stay.

But her efforts seem to lead her further and further away from perfection, and a new question arises: if she isn’t the real Summer, who is she meant to be?

From Sarah Everett, the critically acclaimed author of The Probability of Everything and The Shape of Lost Things.

A transformative guide featuring unique practices to harness creativity as a tool for healing, justice, and liberation from visionary artist, activist, and New York Times bestselling author Patrisse Cullors.

How do we imagine our way toward a better world? From the clothes we wear to the architecture that surrounds us, aesthetics—the way we perceive and create meaning through beauty and art—can be a powerful tool for healing, justice, and liberation.

Structured around themes like memory, care, ritual, embodiment, and imagination, We Make the World helps us reimagine our creative practices as acts of care and resistance. Through case studies spotlighting artists like Lauren Halsey and Ana Mendieta, hands-on exercises, and practical examples, it empowers readers to use creativity to challenge oppressive systems, nurture connection, and build sustainable futures. Each chapter features:

* A spotlight on one artist’s vision and methods,
* analysis of how their work shaped the world, and
* a creative prompt you can try alone or with your community to apply this artistic practice yourself.

Whether you’re an artist seeking new ways to express yourself, an activist craving creative tools to connect with your community, or someone yearning to experience firsthand how beauty creates justice, We Make the World is a portal to the world as we dream it.

Cover photo shot by Altadena-based artist Kenturah Davis.

“Okparanta is a truth-teller and soothsayer.” —Tayari Jones

From the acclaimed author of Under the Udala Trees, a profoundly moving, unforgettable new epic following the aftermath of one catastrophic moment in the lives of two siblings.

Eleven-year-old Alohan and his four-year-old sister Ivie are the children of a rainmaker, who performs elaborate rituals to bring or hold back the rain. One day, the rainmaker's luck runs out: it pours on the wrong person’s wedding, and the repercussions for him and for his wife who accompanies him to the wedding are deadly.

Orphaned and alone, Alohan is quickly forced into an early adulthood, charged with providing for and protecting Ivie. The two siblings become each other’s entire worlds, bound by loss and loyalty. But just as they begin to build a life for themselves, a lapse of judgment leaves them entangled with a wealthy couple’s nefarious scheme. The two are set on drastically different paths, constricted by the ruthlessness of those who hold great power and privilege, and those who are underfoot – who must, and will, do anything merely to survive. What unfolds is an incredible journey of crime and betrayal, misunderstanding and misfortune, spanning continents and decades: from Nigeria to the United States to Italy, and from the homes of the wealthy elites, to those of the destitute—crossing paths, at each turn, with those who steal, con, and traffic in lives.

At the novel’s heart is the love between Alohan and Ivie. Told with captivating force, insight, and compassion, This Impossible Life is a gripping saga of two siblings’ survival, and of whether the love that binds them will be enough to overcome the most unforgiving of fates.

From award-winning author Lisa Moore Ramée comes the companion to A Good Kind of Trouble, a heartfelt and powerful sequel about coming of age, social justice, and the trials of friendship and competition, in which Shayla will learn the true definition of “personal best.”

After a hard seventh grade year full of misunderstandings, face plants, and bullies, all Shayla wants is a hassle-free summer. Her ticket to a summer of fun? Joining the club track team! However, Shayla struggles to fit in with new friends, to set a personal best that will secure her a spot in the exclusive Junior Olympics and reluctantly earns the title of “Prank Queen.”

But Shayla discovers that sometimes trying so hard to stay out of trouble ends up making things a whole lot worse. Will she risk new friendships by owning up to a big mistake? And is she ready to speak out against another social injustice? In this powerful and heartfelt follow-up to A Good Kind of Trouble from acclaimed author Lisa Moore Ramée,Shayla will learn the true definition of personal best.

In this engrossing companion to The Great Misfortune of Stella Sedgwick set in 1860s Paris, prim and proper Olivia Witherson is poised to become the wife of a wealthy businessman, until she’s shown a side of the city she’s never seen—and considers a potential future she never imagined. Perfect for fans of Bridgerton and The Davenports.

Olivia Witherson has it all figured out. Once she’s married to Samuel Desir, a handsome (and rich) businessman in the making, she’ll be able to step into the life of upper-class comfort she’s always known she’s destined for. Getting kidnapped by a gang of ruffians and being held for ransom in their grubby headquarters on the outskirts of Paris… was not part of the plan.

Olivia is sure that Jac Santil, head of the Saints Tristes gang, is the most loathsome, infuriating person she’s ever met. But the longer she spends with the Saints, the more good she sees them doing—distributing food and medicine to the poor, taking in orphaned children, and organizing the exploited laborers of Paris, the same workers who staff Samuel’s factories. Soon, Olivia must acknowledge that there may be more to the Saints, and to Jac, than meets the eye, and that the life of luxury she’d always dreamed of may never come to fruition.

To name a thing is to see it, and no one can see the folk if they don’t want to be seen.
As far as seventeen-year-old Trixie Godfrey is concerned, her hometown of Woods Crossing would be perfect —if not for the dark world of fae and magic lurking in the shadows. Growing up, her grandfather, Pops, never allowed her to get close to them—those aberrations, Mama used to say.
But on graduation night, when Trixie sneaks home past curfew she witnesses Pops’ brutal murder in a moment so sudden, so inhuman she can no longer avoid the fae. Those without the Sight will blame wild animals, calling Pops’ death an accident, a tragedy, but Trixie knows the truth because she has the Sight. She spent years burying her "gift", but she needs to revive it now.
Determined to get justice for Pops and rid Woods Crossing of its monsters, Trixie ventures into the intriguing but deceitful world of the fae—only to find herself caught in a power struggle between ancient families more terrible and crueler than hers could ever be. Or so she thinks….

* Fae courts and forbidden alliances: Trixie is pulled into a dangerous conflict between the rival Seelie and Unseelie courts, where the lines between friend and enemy blur, and every alliance comes with a hidden cost.
* Slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romance: The tension between Trixie and faerie warrior Lariel builds chapter by chapter through mistrust, stolen glances, and reluctant acts of protection—the pull is undeniable long before either admits it.
* Chosen one with a cursed legacy: Trixie carries a rare Second Sight and discovers she is the latest in a bloodline supernaturally bound to the fae through a dark ancestral bargain, making her both powerful and a target.
* Mortal girl in an immortal world: Trixie, a Black teen from small-town South Carolina, is thrust into a glittering, treacherous faerie realm where time bends, glamours deceive, and her humanity is both her greatest vulnerability and greatest weapon.

This heartwarming and exuberant book honors the blessings of every grandmother in a child’s life, by distinguished author Cynthia Leitich Smith (Muscogee) and illustrator Aphelandra (Oneida).

Whether a grandma is mom’s mom or dad’s mom, a great-grandma, a foster grandma, or an honorary grandma, grandmothers bring a special kind of love wherever they go. Grandmas tell stories, teach skills, and make memories, and no community is complete without their helpful hands, loving presence, and good humor.

A wonderful gift from or for a treasured grandma!

Black Women in Bloom is a limited-edition coffee table book celebrating the becoming journeys of Black women across the diaspora. Curated from Carefree’s archives (with new, never-published essays!) and edited by Carefree Magazine founder Anayo Awuzie, it is both a collectible art object and an intimate reading experience.

Featuring over 30 essays from Black women writers around the world, alongside photography and original illustrations from Black artists. Each chapter follows the six stages of growth inspired by the lifecycle of a flower: Seeds, Growth, Reproduction, Pollination, Thorns, and Blooming.

A Lil' LIbros Bilingual Picture Book

Introduce your little one to one of the oldest games of chance, Loteria, as you teach them their first English and Spanish words! Learn el gallo (the rooster), la luna (the moon), el corazón (the heart), and more.

Phillip B. Williams investigates the dangers of desire, balancing narratives of addiction, murders, and hate crimes with passionate, uncompromising depth. Formal poems entrenched in urban landscapes crack open dialogues of racism and homophobia rampant in our culture. Multitudinous voices explore one's ability to harm and be harmed, which uniquely juxtaposes the capacity to revel in both experiences.

Remember frolicking outside during the long, jubilant days of summer? This vibrant collection invites readers to breathe deeply and return to that "carefree" season. From riding bikes with friends through the neighborhood, to hopping the ferry to Boblo Island, catching catfish along the river, dancing on warm nights to Afrobeats and jazz music, and cooling off in the Swimmobile, those sun-drenched memories were often clouded by racism for the Detroiters in this evocative anthology. These emerging and award-winning creators of all ages recount the struggles and triumph of staking their claim to public spaces. Ranging from poetry to essay, creative nonfiction to comics, this collection blends nostalgia with struggle and resilience. Arising from the iconic city of the African American experience comes this exploration of Black joy in the urban outdoors.

How newly middle-class Latinx parents navigate social mobility

Latinx Dreams turns attention to Latinx parents who are new to the middle class―a group that has received little attention in past research on social class and parenting. How do newly middle-class Latinx parents engage in class-making through their parenting? What do they prioritize in their socialization of their children and why? And what parenting practices do they use to accomplish their goals? This book tells the story of the parenting strategies Latinxs engage in to negotiate upward mobility and how they think and feel about their approaches to raising their children.

Based on in-depth interviews with middle class Latinx parents who grew up poor and working-class, Lorena Garcia shows how ethnoracial dynamics at the intersection of class, im/migration, and gender inform the lessons they teach their children about mobility, racialization, speaking Spanish, and developing skills for educational and future success. By accounting for the experiences of newly middle-class Latinx parents, this book offers further insight into class reproduction and mobility, and fills a gap in our understanding of how Latinxs who have grown up in the United States experience and navigate socioeconomic mobility.

Traces the history of the Oakland Community School, the last Community Survival Program of the Black Panther Party

Education for the Revolution offers the first comprehensive historical account of the last standing survival program of the Black Panther Party, the Oakland Community School. First established as the Children’s House in 1970 and operational until 1982, the Oakland Community School provided grade school children with holistic educational and communal practices that oriented them to the Black Panther Party’s political consciousness. Drawing from newspapers, oral histories, and archives, historian Robert P. Robinson links the history of the school to the Black historical tradition of resistance via education, framing the school as a union of Black self-determination and education history.

Robinson situates the Oakland Community School within the Black Panther Party’s longstanding commitment to using education as a tool to achieve liberation. Long before terms like restorative justice, gender inclusion, and culturally relevant pedagogy were popular in classrooms, Robinson explores how students of the Oakland Community School were regarded as co-creators of knowledge alongside their teachers, local activists, and parents. Combining personal reflections from parents, students, and former faculty with an analysis of the school’s concrete teaching practices, the book asserts that their histories are vital to present-day educational efforts.

Whereas popular narratives of the Black Panther Party argue that their political activism ceased by the early 1970s, this history of the Oakland Community School illuminates Black Panther women’s continued efforts to grow power through education. At once compelling and revelatory, Education for the Revolution cements the Oakland Community School’s legacy as one of the most enduring Black independent education projects for social justice, as well as a fascinating precursor to critical forms of education seen today.

Charts the Black Catholic attempt to gain independence within the larger Catholic Church

In 1971, a delegation of Black Catholics traveled to the Vatican seeking a meeting with Pope Paul VI. While they did not meet the pope, they informed Vatican officials of the plight of Black Catholics in the United States. They wished to form their own church governance, independent from the White bishops who oversaw their diocese, so that they could exercise governance over their parishes and schools, which were frequently under threat of closure. Their journey was a chapter in a long history of struggle around African American missions and the place of African Americans in the Catholic Church.

The Black Catholic Movement charts the long arc of the movement among Black Catholics to seek independence within the Catholic Church. Influenced by the Black Power Movement’s struggle for self-determination as well as the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the Black Catholic Movement hoped to establish new ecclesiastical structures that would give them ownership over their church. When American Catholicism proved inflexible to their demands, the break-away Afrocentric Church, Imani Temple, drew thousands of Black Catholics away from Roman Catholicism.

Drawing on interviews and archival research in New Orleans, Detroit, and Washington, DC, the book reconstructs the Black Catholic struggle to maintain distinct Black Catholic communities and to preserve their spiritual, liturgical, and theological heritage. The volume comes up to the present, noting that although allowances have been made for Anglicans to enter the Catholic Church while maintaining their specific Anglican liturgies and traditions, the church has not granted this independence to Black Catholics. The debate about how to navigate unity within the Catholic Church while preserving Black Catholic heritage is still on-going. Ultimately, the book makes the case for the urgency of Black Catholic self-determination and self-governance.

How Black maternal grief sustains, resists, and remakes Black life

In 1955, Mamie Till-Mobley’s decision to display her son’s brutalized body transformed private mourning into public activism, establishing a paradigm of "grief capital." In Mama, Don’t You Weep, Rhaisa Kameela Williams interrogates this phenomenon, arguing that Black maternal grief functions simultaneously as a political and financial commodity and a deeply embodied experience. Williams traces how Black women navigate the "murky waters" where their pain is leveraged as symbolic currency―reproducible, marketable, and subject to contract―while they simultaneously perform the quiet, ongoing labor of living with loss.

Spanning the years 1955 to 1986, Williams employs performance studies to analyze the shift from the racial liberalism of the Civil Rights era to the rise of liberal multiculturalism. She examines a diverse archive, contrasting the "grief tours" of Mamie Till-Mobley with the debt resistance of the National Welfare Rights Organization and the creative works of Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor. Williams challenges the "frozen image" of the strong Black mother, distinguishing between grievance―the linear, legal demand for justice―and grief, which is cyclical, messy, and pervasive. By shifting focus away from the spectacle of murdered Black men and toward the material realities of the women left behind, Mama, Don’t You Weep reveals how Black maternal grief is generative, capacious, and inextricably bound to the nation’s political economy.

Reimagines neurodiversity through intersections of race, disability, and social justice

Neurodiversity has progressed from niche activism to a household term; our culture is now saturated with social media ads promising to "train" ADHD brains and media tropes like the quirky savant. But amidst this barrage of content urging self-optimization against a neurotypical template, Neurofutures pauses to ask: what comes next? Editors Diana R. Paulin, M. Remi Yergeau, Ralph James Savarese, and Elizabeth J. Donaldson gather a diverse array of scholars and creatives to think through "crip time" ― sideways, chronic, manic, and executive dysfunction time ― to reimagine the future of cognitive difference.

Moving beyond a simplistic celebration of diversity, the collection interrogates the intersections of race, disability, and social justice. Contributors offer "mad provocations" that span from Black neurodivergence and Afrofuturism to neuroqueer paradigms and animal liberation. Through analyses of cultural texts ― ranging from the folklore of "Little Eight John" to the speculative worlds of Octavia Butler and Shirley Jackson ― the essays deconstruct the violence of neurotypical norms while advocating for the rights of neurodivergent people to full lives and care.

Neurofutures refuses the linear march of progress, instead delving into the complex, often hidden realities of lived experience to map a world that welcomes divergence, dissent, and deep compassion.

Holes command attention. They make us giggle, squirm, and wonder. But what do they really mean to us and why are they so often surrounded by surprising discourses of power and control?

For millennia, the figure of the hole stood as the cornerstone for idioms and expressions that denote emptiness, lack, absences, and voids. Approaching a hole makes one wary of imbalance or depravation. A hole demands to be filled. This Book Is Full of Holes challenges these hollow associations, offering instead a range of unexpected (and provocative) religious, sociosexual, philosophical, and scientific discourses.

Through an analysis of a wide range of literary and cultural objects, yasser elhariry brings disparate discursive spheres into conversation. He nimbly juxtaposes the holey relationships between ancient Hebrew riddles and Hollywood space movies, ’90s grunge and Black astrophysics, Swiss cheese and philosophy, sacred ritual and postcolonial feminism.

Satirical, dead serious, and deeply personal, elhariry’s treatise on this seemingly dead-end object―holes―illuminates the paradox that they nonetheless maintain a persistent hold on the imagination. His stylish analysis reveals their overlooked racialized, gendered, homophobic, and corporeal histories. Holes have been weaponized. This Book Is Full of Holes disarms.

Esteban Rodríguez's At the River asks what it means to live on the border, and how one can come to terms with the symbolic weight of crossing between two worlds.

Combining sharp prose, poetic insight, and a series of incisive black-and-white photographs, At the River journeys to the U.S.-Mexican border in deep south Texas, where our narrator, under his grandmother’s watchful eye, contemplates the geography, people, and cultural characteristics that define the region. Over the course of an afternoon, as we cross from one country to the next, we come face to face with fatigued security guards, desperate children, eager vendors, ominous receptionists, and a whole range of characters that mimic that indifference and uncertainty that defines this corner of the earth. In Rodríguez’s tender and often humorous style, questions arise about identity, economic privilege, race, the nature of language and silence, and the ways in which belonging becomes more than just the name you were born with. At the River asks not only what it means to live on the border, but how one can come to terms with the symbolic weight of crossing between two worlds.

Inside the Body of Black Feminism connects historical studies of medical racism with Black feminist theories of the body to reimagine the material and metaphoric possibilities for political subjectivity across race, gender, and culture.

Inside the Body of Black Feminism charts a cultural genealogy of antiracist and feminist engagement with some of the most objectified internal “parts” of racist medical and scientific inquiry: bones and blood, brains and hearts, guts and wombs. In a move counterintuitive to Black feminism’s emphasis on externalized representations of the body, Samantha Pinto reinterprets the relationship between embodiment, health, and race through cultural archives that reimagine the inside of the Black body. Working through materials such as medical textbooks, memoirs, data visualizations, museum displays, speculative fiction, and horror films, Pinto explores how a visually inaccessible corporeal interior becomes discernible and racialized in the public sphere. Inside the Body of Black Feminism engages expressive cultural work to ask how we might know the inside of the Black body differently through Black feminist theory and how scientific and medical inquiry might enable us to understand political subjectivity anew.