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  • Monstrous

    by Jessica Lewis

    $12.99

    Forced to spend her summer in her aunt's strange small town, a teen girl discovers dark secrets hidden in the woods. From the author of Bad Witch Burning comes another pulse-pounding novel perfect for fans of Supernatural and Lovecraft Country.

    Don't go outside past dark. Come straight home after church. And above all—never, ever, go into Red Wood.

    These are the rules Latavia's aunt gives her when Latavia arrives in Sanctum, Alabama for the summer. Though, weird as they are, living in Sanctum does have its pros. Mainly, the cute girl who works at the local ice cream shop. 

    But Sanctum is turning out to be as strange as the rules—and the longer Latavia’s in town, the more suspicious she is that the people there are hiding something. And the more clear it is that she’s an outsider. Everyone’s nice enough, but they seem determined to prove everything is normal.

    But it's not. Because there’s something in Red Wood that the towns’ people are hiding. And if Latavia doesn't follow her aunt’s rules, she might not be able to leave Sanctum. Ever...

  • PRE-ORDER: Thieves' Gambit

    by Kayvion Lewis

    $19.99
    PRE-ORDER: OnSale: September 26, 2023 
    The Inheritance Games meets Ocean’s Eleven in this cinematic heist thriller where a cutthroat competition brings together the world’s best thieves and one thief is playing for the highest stakes of all: her mother's life.

    At only seventeen years old, Ross Quest is already a master thief, especially adept at escape plans. Until her plan to run away from her legendary family of thieves takes an unexpected turn, leaving her mother’s life hanging in the balance.

    In a desperate bid, she enters the Thieves’ Gambit, a series of dangerous, international heists where killing the competition isn’t exactly off limits, but the grand prize is a wish for anything in the world—a wish that could save her mom. When she learns two of her competitors include her childhood nemesis and a handsome, smooth-talking guy who might also want to steal her heart, winning the Gambit becomes trickier than she imagined.

    Ross tries her best to stick to the family creed: trust no one whose last name isn’t Quest. But with the stakes this high, Ross will have to decide who to con and who to trust before time runs out. After all, only one of them can win.
  • Ode to Hip-Hop: 50 Albums That Define 50 Years of Trailblazing Music

    by Kiana Fitzgerald

    $28.00
    From underground roots to mainstream popularity, hip-hop's influence on music and entertainment around the world has been nothing short of extraordinary. Ode to Hip-Hop chronicles the journey with profiles of fifty albums that have defined, expanded, and ultimately transformed the genre into what it is today. From 2 Live Crew's groundbreaking As Nasty As They Wanna Be in 1989 to Cardi B's similarly provocative Invasion of Privacy almost thirty years later, and more, Ode to Hip-Hop covers hip-hop from coast to coast. Organized by decade and with sidebars on fashion, mixtapes, and key players throughout, the result is a comprehensive homage to hip-hop, published just in time for the fiftieth anniversary. Enjoyed in the club, at a party, through speakers or headphones--the albums in this book deserve to be listened to again and again, for the next fifty years and beyond.

    Albums featured: Kurtis Blow (self-titled, 1980); The Message (Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, 1982); Run-D.M.C (self-titled, 1984), Hot, Cool & Vicious (Salt-N-Pepa, 1986); Paid in Full (Eric B. & Rakim, 1987); Straight Outta Compton (N.W.A, 1988); Lyte as a Rock (MC Lyte, 1988); As Nasty as They Wanna Be (2 Live Crew, 1989); Mama Said Knock You Out (LL Cool J, 1990); People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (A Tribe Called Quest, 1990); The Chronic (Dr. Dre, 1992); Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (Wu-Tang Clan, 1993); Black Reign (Queen Latifah, 1993); Doggystyle (Snoop Dogg, 1993); Illmatic (Nas, 1994); Ready to Die (The Notorious B.I.G., 1994); The Diary (Scarface, 1994); Funkdafied (Da Brat, 1994); Mystic Stylez (Three 6 Mafia, 1995); Hard Core (Lil' Kim, 1996); Ridin' Dirty (UGK, 1996); All Eyez On Me (2Pac, 1996); Supa Dupa Fly (Missy Elliott, 1997); Aquemini (Outkast, 1998); The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (Lauryn Hill, 1998); It's Dark and Hell Is Hot (DMX, 1998); Things Fall Apart (The Roots, 1999); Da Baddest B***h (Trina, 2000); The Marshall Mathers LP (Eminem, 2000); The Blueprint (JAY-Z, 2001); Lord Willin' (Clipse, 2002); Get Rich or Die Tryin' (50 Cent, 2003); The College Dropout (Kanye West, 2004); Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101 (Young Jeezy, 2005); King (T.I., 2006); Lupe Fiasco's the Cool (Lupe Fiasco, 2007); The Carter III (Lil Wayne, 2008); The State vs. Radric Davis (Gucci Mane, 2009); Pink Friday (Nicki Minaj, 2010); Watch the Throne (JAY-Z & Kanye West, 2011); Nothing Was the Same (Drake, 2013); To Pimp a Butterfly (Kendrick Lamar, 2015); DS2 (Future, 2015); Culture (Migos, 2017); Invasion of Privacy (Cardi B., 2018); Whack World (Tierra Whack, 2018); Eve (Rapsody, 2019); City on Lock (City Girls, 2020); Montero (Lil Nas X, 2021); Traumazine (Megan Thee Stallion, 2022)
     
  • Carter Reads the Newspaper

    by Deborah Hopkinson

    $17.99

    *ships in 7-10 business days

    Carter G. Woodson was born to two formerly enslaved people ten years after the end of the Civil War. Though his father could not read, he believed in being an informed citizen, so Carter read the newspaper to him every day. As a teenager, Carter went to work in the coal mines, and there he met Oliver Jones, who did something important: he asked Carter not only to read to him and the other miners, but also research and find more information on the subjects that interested them.

    "My interest in penetrating the past of my people was deepened," Carter wrote. His journey would take him many more years, traveling around the world and transforming the way people thought about history.

    From an award-winning team of author Deborah Hopkinson and illustrator Don Tate, this first-ever picture book biography of Carter G. Woodson emphasizes the importance of pursuing curiosity and encouraging a hunger for knowledge of stories and histories that have not been told.

    Illustrations also feature brief biological sketches of important figures from African and African American history.

  • PRE-ORDER: Laws of Annihilation

    by Eriq La Salle

    $16.99

    PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: October 24, 2023

    From award-winning actor, producer, and director Eriq La Salle comes the final installment of the Martyr Maker series where an FBI agent battling a terminal illness, alongside two NYPD detectives, must investigate a series of hate crimes and murders threatening a city on the brink of a race war.

    Shortly after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, FBI Agent Janet Maclin is facing her toughest case yet. She is assigned to help NYPD detectives, Quincy Cavanaugh and Phee Freeman who are investigating a series of gruesome hate crimes that threaten a city on the brink of a race war.

    As the body count mounts, time is running out for Maclin in more ways than one.

  • Eve

    by Victor LaValle

    $17.99
    A young girl, Eve, raised in a virtual reality embarks on a deadly cross-country quest to save her father… and our dying planet.

    WHAT WORLD HAVE WE LEFT OUR CHILDREN?

    When the ice caps melted, most of humanity was lost to the hidden disease that was released. Now, a mysterious girl named Eve has awoken in secret and must deal with a world that’s nothing like the virtual reality she was raised in.

    In order to save her father and accompanied only by Wexler, her robotic caretaker and protector sheathed in her favorite teddy bear, Eve must embark on a deadly quest across the country. Along the way, she will have to contend not only with the threats of a very real world that await her, but the lies we tell our children in the name of protecting them.

    In the spirit of his critically acclaimed and award winning novel Changling, novelist Victor LaValle (The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle’s Destroyer) and illustrator Jo Mi-Gyeong (The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance) deliver a powerful dystopian adventure about the world we leave behind… and the price that must be paid to restore life to a dying planet.

    Collects Eve #1-5.
  • Tenderheaded: A Comb-Bending Collection of Hair Stories (Revised)

    edited by Pamela Johnson & Juliette Harris

    $19.99
    In this “outstanding volume” (Boston Herald) that “ought to be at the top of everyone’s must-read list” (Essence), Black women and men evocatively explore what could make a smart woman ignore doctor’s orders; what could get a hardworking employee fired from her job; what could get a black woman in hot water with her white boyfriend? In a word: hair.

    In a society where beauty standards can be difficult if not downright unobtainable for many Black women, the issue of hair is a major one. Now, in this evocative and fascinating collection of essays, poems, excerpts, and more, 
    Tenderheaded speaks to the personal, political, and cultural meaning of Black hair.

    From A’​Leila Perry Bundles, the great-granddaughter of hair care pioneer Madam C.J. Walker celebrating her ancestor’s legacy, to an art historian exploring the moving ways in which Black hair has been used to express Yoruba spirituality, to renowned activist Angela Davis questioning how her message of revolution got reduced to a hairstyle, 
    Tenderheaded is as rich and diverse as the children of the African diaspora.

    With works from authors including Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, bell hooks, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and more, this “remarkable array of writings and images” (
    Publishers Weekly) will stay with you long after you turn the final page.
  • My Mother Was a Nanny

    by Laura James

    $19.99

    A girl longs for her mother’s attention. But Mummy is always busy helping everyone else and their children!

    Day by day, the narrator recalls what it was like growing up with her mother, who was a nanny, as well as a friend, baker, maker, teacher, cleaner and more. As the youngest in her family, the girl stayed home and helped amuse the children her mother looked after. She went along on trips to the Caribbean greengrocer in their Brooklyn neighborhood, where her mother would almost always forget to buy her favorite fruit. She eavesdropped on her mother’s conversations, waiting for her turn to talk, only to be shooed away. She even accompanied her mother on office-cleaning expeditions on Saturdays. Mummy seldom had a moment to spare. 

    But looking back on a special surprise one Easter Sunday, the narrator realizes that her mother was always thinking about her own children, in spite of the demands of her domestic work and the central role she played in her community.

    Based on Laura James’ childhood in Brooklyn, and accompanied by her gorgeous, vibrant illustrations, this simple story is a moving reflection of race, class and labor in North America, including the Caribbean.

  • PRE-ORDER: Summer of Hamn: Hollowpointlessness Aiding Mass Nihilism

    by Chuck D

    $34.95

    PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: October 3, 2023

    The tragedy of gun violence is depicted in annotated illustrations that illuminate a society gone hamn; from legendary hip-hop artist Chuck D (Public Enemy, Prophets of Rage, etc.)

    “With his latest work of graphic nonfiction, Chuck D uses his art and hip-hop rhymes to show how the US has been held hostage by gun violence and a growing sense of hopelessness . . . A focused, fresh, urgent text filled with pictures worth 1,000 words and rhymes worth thousands more.”
    Kirkus Reviews, STARRED review

    In Summer of Hamn, legendary hip-hop artist Chuck D takes on gun violence with rhythmic, inventive writing and passionately raw art. He has long spoken out against gun violence, including how it intersects with rap and hip-hop culture. Summer of Hamn is the bound journal Chuck D carried with him in the summer of 2022—a summer marked by a particularly high rate of gun death.

    In these pages, victims are memorialized, politicians are skewered, and vehement pleas to eradicate gun violence are made. Jaw-dropping statistics (40% of all personal guns in the world are owned by US citizens; there are 100 million more guns in the US than there are citizens) intersect with poetic reflections ("Another mall shooting seems normalized in Columbus / Raining outside in Ohio / Raining inside folks panic / Inside hearing shots bust"), all written in Chuck's hand over vibrant, utterly original, neoexpressionist ink and watercolor art.

    This book is the follow-up to STEWdio the debut trilogy on Chuck D's Enemy Books imprint, in which he invented a new medium—the "naphic grovel"—a bound journal brimming with his observations and reflections of current events in both art and prose. Summer of Hamn is the second release on the imprint.

  • PRE-ORDER: Mama Said: Stories

    by Kristen Gentry

    $19.99

    PRE-ORDER: ON SALE October 1, 2023

    Original stories of Black family life in Louisville, Kentucky, for readers of Dantiel Moniz (Milk Blood Heat) and Kai Harris (What the Fireflies Knew).

    The linked stories in Mama Said are set in Louisville, Kentucky, a city with a rich history steeped in tobacco, bourbon, and gambling, indulgences that can quickly become gripping and destructive vices. Set amid the tail end of the crack epidemic and the rise of the opioid crisis, Mama Said evokes Black family life in all its complexity, following JayLynn, along with her cousins Zaria and Angel, as they come of age struggling against their mothers’ drug addictions.

    JayLynn heads to college intent on gaining distance from her depressed mother, only to learn that her mother’s illness has reached a terrifying peak. She fears the chaos and instability of her extended family will prove too much for her boyfriend, whose idyllic family feels worlds, not miles, apart from her own. When bats invade Zaria’s new home, she is forced to determine how much she is willing to sacrifice to be a good mother. Angel rebels on Derby night, risking her safety to connect with her absent mother and the wild ways that consumed her.

    Mama Said separates from stereotypes of Black families, presenting instead the joy, humor, and love that coexist with the trauma of drug abuse within communities. Kristen Gentry’s stories showcase the wide-reaching repercussions of addiction and the ties that forever bind daughters to their mothers, flaws and all.

  • Divine Days: A Novel

    by Leon Forrest

    $28.00
    A virtuosic epic applauded by Stanley Crouch as “an adventurous masterwork that provides our literature with a signal moment,” back in print in a definitive new edition

    “I have an awful memory for faces, but an excellent one for voices,” muses Joubert Jones, the aspiring playwright at the center of Divine Days. A kaleidoscopic whorl of characters, language, music, and Black experience, this saga follows Jones for one week in 1966 as he pursues the lore and legends of fictional Forest County, a place resembling Chicago’s South Side. Joubert is a veteran, recently returned to the city, who works for his aunt Eloise’s newspaper and pours drinks at her Night Light Lounge. He wants to write a play about Sugar-Groove, a drifter, “eternal wunderkind,” and local folk hero who seems to have passed away. Sugar-Groove’s disappearance recalls the subject of one of Joubert’s earlier writing attempts—W. A. D. Ford, a protean, diabolical preacher who led a religious sect known as “Divine Days.” Joubert takes notes as he learns about both tricksters, trying to understand their significance.

    Divine Days introduces readers to a score of indelible characters: Imani, Joubert’s girlfriend, an artist and social worker searching for her lost siblings and struggling to reconcile middle-class life with her values and Black identity; Eloise, who raised Joubert and whose influence is at odds with his writerly ambitions; (Oscar) Williemain, a local barber, storyteller, and founder of the Royal Rites and Righteous Ramblings Club; and the Night Light’s many patrons. With a structure inspired by James Joyce and jazz, Leon Forrest folds references to African American literature and cinema, Shakespeare, the Bible, and classical mythology into a heady quest that embraces life in all its tumult and adventure.

    This edition brings Forrest’s masterpiece back into print, incorporating hundreds of editorial changes that the author had requested (but were never made) when the book was picked up by W. W. Norton after a disastrous warehouse fire destroyed most of the inventory from the original printing of the book by Another Chicago Press.
  • The Residue Years

    by Mitchell S. Jackson

    $18.00

    “Powerful . . . full of impossible hope . . . Jackson’s prose has a spoken-word cadence, the language flying off the page with percussive energy.” —The New York Times Book Review

    Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction

    Finalist for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize

    Nominee for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award

    Honor Book for Fiction for the Black Caucus of the ALA

    Mitchell S. Jackson grew up black in a neglected neighborhood in America's whitest city, Portland, Oregon. In the '90s, those streets and beyond had fallen under the shadow of crack cocaine and its familiar mayhem. In his commanding debut autobiographical novel, Mitchell writes what it was to come of age in that time and place, with a breakout voice that's nothing less than extraordinary.

    The Residue Years switches between the perspectives of a young man, Champ, and his mother, Grace. Grace is just out of a drug treatment program, trying to stay clean and get her kids back. Champ is trying to do right by his mom and younger brothers, and dreams of reclaiming the only home he and his family have ever shared. But selling crack is the only sure way he knows to achieve his dream. In this world of few options and little opportunity, where love is your strength and your weakness, this family fights for family and against what tears one apart.

  • Single Black Female

    by Tracy Brown

    $16.99
    A taut, edgy, deftly spun novel about four friends grappling with the dramatic twists and turns of life, love and what it means to "make it in America."

    Ivy Donovan is a successful stylist, entrepreneur, and single mom who has been loyal to her sons’ father, Michael, who’s serving a lengthy prison sentence. But life has gotten lonely over the years, and Ivy wants more for herself. Michael, however, isn’t about to lose his family.

    Coco Norris is successful, single, childless, and struggling with her unreciprocated allegiance to emotionally unavailable men. When she finds a man who seems like he can give her everything she has ever wanted, Coco soon discovers that she has taken on more than she can possibly handle.

    Deja Maddox is a real estate agent who is married to a police sergeant with the NYPD. They have assimilated, looking down on anything that doesn’t fit their buttoned up, polished life. But Deja isn’t as satisfied as she would like everyone to believe. When Deja’s past returns with a vengeance, she’s forced to face herself and her “perfect” life begins to crumble.

    Things come to a head when Ivy’s youngest son, Kingston, is caught up in a polarizing encounter with the NYPD. Everyone is forced to figure out where they stand, including the police sergeant who suddenly has to decide if his "blue life" matters more to him than his black life and the black lives of those he loves.

  • A History of Burning

    by Janika Oza

    $29.00
    This epic, sweeping historical novel full of "wondrous complexity” spans continents and a century, and reveals how one act of survival can reverberate through generations (Rachel Khong, author of Goodbye, Vitamin). ​

    “Remarkable….a haunting, symphonic tale”— New York Times Book Review

    In 1898, Pirbhai, a teenage boy looking for work, is taken from his village in India to labor for the British on the East African Railway. Far from home, Pirbhai commits a brutal act in the name of survival that will haunt him and his family for years to come.

    So begins Janika Oza’s masterful, richly told epic, where the embers of this desperate act are fanned into flame over four generations, four continents, throughout the twentieth century. Pirbhai’s children are born in Uganda during the waning days of British colonial rule, and as the country moves toward independence, his granddaughters, three sisters, come of age in a divided nation. Latika is an aspiring journalist, who will put everything on the line for what she believes in; Mayuri’s ambitions will take her farther away from home than she ever imagined; and fearless Kiya will have to carry the weight of her family’s silence and secrets.

    In 1972, the entire family is forced to flee under Idi Amin’s military dictatorship. Pirbhai’s grandchildren are now scattered across the world, struggling to find their way back to each other. One day a letter arrives with news that makes each generation question how far they are willing to go, and who they are willing to defy, to secure their own place in the world.

    A History of Burning is an unforgettable tour de force, an intimate family saga of complicity and resistance, about the stories we share, the ones that remain unspoken, and the eternal search for home.
  • The Artivist

    by Nikkolas Smith

    $18.99
    An inspiring picture book about how children can combine art and activism in their daily lives.

    "They say I'm an artist. They say I'm an activist."

    When a young boy realizes the scope of inequities in the wider world, he's seized with the urge to do more. He decides to bring together the different parts of himself—the artist and the activist—to become. . . an Artivist. After his mural goes viral, he sets out to change the world one painting at a time.

    With inspiring text and stunning illustrations by Nikkolas Smith, The Artivist is a call to action for young readers to point out injustice in their lives and try to heal the broken bones of the world through their art.
  • A Kids Book About Failure

    Dr. Laymon Hicks

    $19.99

    How to not fear failure, but embrace it as a way to learn.

    Teach kids how to turn negative feelings surrounding the inevitability of failure into important life lessons.

    Failure is something that everyone encounters at some point in their lives, no matter how much you try to avoid it. Whether that’s in school, in a friendship, or even playing your favorite sport, success is not a 100% certainty. Grownups, it’s up to you to teach kids how to embrace it. This book doesn’t paint a pretty face on failure. Instead, it rethinks what it means, and shows kids how to live their lives not trying to avoid it.

    Meet A Kids Co., a new kind of media company with a collection of beautifully designed books that kickstart challenging, empowering, and important conversations for kids and their grownups. Learn more about us at akidsco.com.


  • We are Afro Unicorns

    April Showers, Anthony Conley (Illustrated by)

    Sold out

    Which spectacular unicorn are you?

    Each Afro Unicorn has superpowers: Unique is the problem solver with the power to heal and protect; Divine cheerleads and uplifts others, possessing super strength; and Magical is the all-knowing one with the power to read minds.

    Get to know these amazing Afro Unicorns and celebrate the power inside of you!

    When Afro Unicorn creator April Showers realized that her favorite emojithe unicorn!was only available in white, she was inspired to create a more inclusive brand for children of color to celebrate how magical, unique, and divine they truly are.

  • There's No Way I'd Die First

    Lisa Springer

    $18.99

    A spine-tingling contemporary horror-comedy novel that follows a scary-movie buff as she hosts an elaborate Halloween bash but soon finds the festivities upended when she and her guests are forced to test their survival skills in a deadly game, from debut author Lisa Springer.

    Seventeen-year-old Noelle Layne knows horror. Every trope, every warning sign, every survival tactic. She even leads a successful movie club dedicated to the genre. Who better to throw the ultimate, most exclusive Halloween party on all of Long Island?

    With some of the top influencers in her school on the guest list, including gorgeous singer-songwriter Archer Mitchell, her popularity is bound to spike. She could really use the social boost for an upcoming brand expansion. Nothing is going to ruin this party.

    Except…maybe the low budget It clown she hired for a stirring round of tag. He axes one of her classmates. From the looks of his devilish grin and bag full of killer tricks, he's just getting started.

    A murderous clown is out for blood, but Noelle has been waiting her entire life to prove that she’s a Final Girl.

  • In My Skin: My Life On and Off the Basketball Court

    by Brittney Griner with Sue Hovey

    $16.99

    The Phoenix Mercury star—the world’s most famous female basketball player—shares her coming-of-age story, revealing how she found the strength to overcome bullies and to embrace her authentic self

    “[A] searing and ultimately liberating memoir” —New York Times Book Review

    At six foot eight with an eighty-eight-inch wingspan and a size 17 men’s shoe, the Phoenix Mercury star and three-time All-American Brittney Griner has been shattering stereotypes and breaking boundaries ever since she burst onto the national scene as a dunking high school phenom. But the sport’s “most transformative figure” (Sports Illustrated) is equally famous for making headlines off the court, for speaking out on issues of gender, sexuality, body image, and self-esteem.

    In this heartfelt memoir, Brittney reflects on painful episodes in her life, as well as the highs. She describes how she came to celebrate what makes her unique—inspiring lessons she now shares with readers. Filled with all the humor and personality that Brittney Griner has become known for, In My Skin is more than a glimpse into one of the most original people in sports; it’s a powerful call to readers to be true to themselves, to love who they are on the inside and out.

  • Evil Eye: A Novel

    by Etaf Rum

    $30.00

    The acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of A Woman Is No Man returns with a striking exploration of the expectations of Palestinian-American women, the meaning of a fulfilling life, and the ways our unresolved pasts affect our presents.

    “After Yara is placed on probation at work for fighting with a racist coworker, her Palestinian mother claims the provocation and all that’s come after were the result of a family curse. While Yara doesn’t believe in old superstitions, she finds herself unpacking her strict, often volatile childhood growing up in Brooklyn, looking for clues as to why she feels so unfulfilled in a life her mother could only dream of. Etaf Rum’s follow-up to her debut, A Woman Is No Man, is a complicated mother-daughter drama that looks at the lasting effects of intergenerational trauma and what it takes to break the cycle of abuse” (Time magazine).

  • Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance

    by Zora Neale Hurston

    $17.99

    Foreword by Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage

    Edited with an introduction by Genevieve West, professor and chair of the English, Speech, and Foreign Languages department at Texas Woman’s University

    A collection of remarkable stories of the Harlem Renaissance from “one of the greatest writers of our time” (Toni Morrison) Zora Neale Hurston.

    In May 1925, Zora Neale Hurston—then a fledgling writer—was living in New York, “desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world.” For the next decade, she wrote short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nearly a century later, this singular talent is recognized as one of the most influential and revered American artists of the modern period.

    Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories that flash with Hurston’s biting, satiric humor, as they share revelations about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism, that proudly reflect African American folk culture. Brought together for the first time, they include eight of Hurston’s “lost” Harlem gems, which were found in dusty periodicals and archives. All are timeless classics that enrich our understanding and appreciation of this exceptional writer’s voice and her contributions to America’s literary traditions.

  • Little Daymond Learns to Earn

    by Daymond John

    $19.99
    Little Daymond sees something he really wants to buy! But he doesn’t have enough money. His mom points out that he does have talents and he can use them to solve problems.

    Inspired by his own creativity—and with help from his friends!—Daymond starts a T-shirt business. The whole crew works together and figures out their unique strengths so they can each get exactly what they want—and even have some change to spare.

    Bestselling author and Shark Tank star Daymond John uses this fun story to ignite kids' early interest in how money works—including the concepts of saving, spending, budgeting, and borrowing—to develop a basic foundation of financial literacy that sets children up for success in the future.
  • PRE-ORDER: How to Smile

    by Thich Nhat Hanh

    $9.95

    PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: November 28, 2023

    The final book in the bestselling How To series: simple, refreshing meditations of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh give us inspiration and tools for transforming our suffering and cultivating happiness

    In inspiring passages and simple exercises, Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us what he calls “the art of suffering.” He gives us teachings and tools for transforming suffering as well as ways to touch moments of happiness and smile even while suffering is still there.
    Written with characteristic simplicity and wisdom, these insightful meditations—born from the Zen master’s lifetime of Zen practice and peacemaking—teach us how to come back to ourselves, calm our body and mind, and not let suffering overwhelm us. When we’re willing to face our suffering and look deeply into it, we begin to understand its origins. Transformation and healing become possible, and along with it a greater capacity to understand the suffering of others and resolve conflicts in our relationships. Creating peace and understanding in ourselves and our relationships in this way is essential for helping create true understanding and peace in our communities, society, and the world. Thich Nhat Hanh offers practices for transforming our own suffering, listening deeply to the suffering of others, and especially how to cultivate our own smile and happiness.
    All Mindfulness Essentials books are illustrated with playful sumi-ink drawings by California artist Jason DeAntonis.

    Series Overview: The Mindfulness Essentials series is a back-to-basics collection from world-renowned Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh that introduces everyone to the essentials of mindfulness practice. The books, pocket-sized and perfect for placement at point of sale, all come with original sumi-ink artwork by California artist Jason DeAntonis.

  • Small Joys: A Novel

    by Elvin James Mensah

    $27.00
    An unexpected friendship saves a young man's life in this moving, utterly charming debut about chosen family, the winding road to happiness, and the grace of second chances.

    Could I inspire happiness in others, the same way he seemed to do in me?

    It’s 2005 and Harley has dropped out of college to move home, back to rural England where he works a dead-end job at a movie theater. Estranged from his father and finding every attempt at happiness futile, he is on the verge of making a devastating final decision. Fortunately for him, things don’t go according to plan, and his attempt on his own life is interrupted by his new roommate, Muddy.

    Muddy is everything Harley is not: white, ostensibly heterosexual, freewheeling, confident in his masculinity. Despite their differences, a deep friendship blossoms between them when Muddy takes Harley under his wing and shows him everything that, in his eyes, makes life worth living: birdwatching, karaoke, rugby, and the band Oasis.

    But this newfound friendship is complicated. It has enormous repercussions for the pair’s romantically entangled friend group—with Chelsea, an overbearing striver whose generosity they begrudgingly rely on; with Finlay, her raffish and uncouth boyfriend; and with Noria, who despite her simmering confidence is smarting from a series of unreturned affections. And then there’s the violent affair with an older man that Harley finds himself slipping back into . . .

    As secrets and jealousies endanger all that Harley has come to rely on, he finds himself faltering once again, even though he finally has something—and someone—to live for. Soul-stirring and witty, full of hope and peopled with characters who feel like close friends, Small Joys explores a young man’s turbulent journey toward happiness and announces the arrival of an exciting voice in fiction.
  • Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass: The Graphic Novel

    by Meg Medina

    $12.99

    Newbery Medalist Meg Medina returns to her powerful YA novel about school bullying with a dynamic graphic-novel edition adapted and illustrated by Mel Valentine Vargas.

    It’s the beginning of sophomore year, and Piedad “Piddy” Sanchez is having a hard time adjusting to her new high school. Things don’t get any easier when Piddy learns that Yaqui Delgado hates her and wants to kick her ass. Piddy doesn’t even know who Yaqui is, never mind what she’s done to piss her off. Rumor has it that Yaqui thinks Piddy is stuck-up, shakes her stuff when she walks, and isn’t Latina enough with her white skin, good grades, and no accent. And Yaqui isn’t kidding around, so Piddy better watch her back. At first, Piddy is more concerned with learning about the father she’s never met, navigating her rocky relationship with her mom, and staying in touch with her best friend, Mitzi. But when the harassment escalates, avoiding Yaqui and her gang takes over Piddy’s life. Is there any way for Piddy to survive without closing herself off from those who care about her—or running away? More relevant than ever a decade after its initial publication, Mel Valentine Vargas’s graphic novel adaptation of Meg Medina’s ultimately empowering story is poised to be discovered by a new generation of readers.

  • The Witchery (The Witchery, Book 1)

    by S. Isabelle

    $12.99

    "The Witchery is a dark, delicious delight. S. Isabelle is a debut to watch." -- Justina Ireland, New York Times bestselling author of Dread Nation

    The Haunting Season is here and the Wolves are awake.

    Haelsford, Florida, is a hellmouth. Or at least, that's what Logan, a new witch struggling to control her powers, thinks when she arrives at Mesmortes Coven Academy. She is immediately taken under the wing of the infamous Red Three: Iris, a deathwitch, who wants nothing more than to break the town's curse; Thalia, the talented greenwitch, on the run from her religious family and a past that still haunts her; and Jailah, one of the most extraordinary witches at the academy whose thirst for power may lead her down a dark path.

    With the Haunting Season approaching, Wolves will soon rise from the Swamp to kill, and the humans and witches must work together to survive the yearly onslaught. However, the history between humans and witches is long and bloodied, with the current truce hard-won and hanging in the balance. And this year, the stakes couldn't be higher as two boys from Hammersmitt School prepare to make their first sacrifices to the witches in exchange for protection. But when students start turning up dead, Iris, Thalia, Jailah, and Logan realize they'll have to harness their powers and stop the Wolves themselves. Yet old dangers lie in wait, and the cost to break the curse may be greater than any witch or human could ever know...

  • What Is Money?: Bartering, Cash, Cryptocurrency... And Much More! (A True Book: Money)

    by Alicia Green

    $7.99

    A series to build strong financial habits early on in life!

    Understanding how society progressed from the barter system to currency-and how that money works in the global economy-are just two critical financial literacy skills that all kids should have. Did you know that the first paper currency appeared more than 1,200 years ago? Or that the currency of the future will likely be digital? Learn all this and more in What Is Money? - a book that starts kids on the road to financial literacy.

    ABOUT THE SERIES:

    How can I make money? What is inflation? What is the difference between a debit card and a credit card? Economics - and more specifically, money - play such a large role in our lives. Yet there are many mysteries and misconceptions surrounding the basic concepts of finance and smart money management. This set of True Books offers students the know-how they'll need to start on the road to financial literacy-a crucial skill for today's world. Interesting information is presented in a fun, friendly way-and in the simplest terms possible-which will enable students to build strong financial habits early on in life.

  • Shadow Coven (The Witchery, Book 2)

    by S. Isabelle

    $19.99

    The Haunting Season has ended, but dark magic lurks in the shadows in this deadly sequel to The Witchery.

    After defeating the Wolves, Jailah, Logan, Iris, and Thalia want nothing more than a summer of fun and relaxation. But there is no rest for the wicked, especially when Death comes for Iris. She is to become a Reaper, tasked with banishing souls who refuse to cross over. But Iris suspects there’s something more ominous going on when Mathew’s role as her tether grows sinister.

    Logan and Thalia are ready to prove themselves as witches. Except Logan still hears the howling Wolves and realizes that the Haunting Season may have awakened more than just her magic. And while Thalia wants to spend her days cleansing the Swamp for good, she finds herself heading to a place she swore she’d never go again: home. Witches have started going missing near Annex, and Thalia is convinced that her father is behind the disappearances. With the help of Logan and Trent, Thalia returns to stop him.

    Meanwhile, Jailah is focused on her internship with the Haelsford Witchery Council until she discovers a treacherous magic hidden beneath Mesmortes, and there are those who will go to great lengths to keep it buried. So, she turns to the only person who understands, even if it’s the one witch who hates her the most.

    Separated by distance, the coven is surrounded by magical and mundane threats that must be defeated before they lose their witchery--and each other--forever...

  • Nightmare King

    by Daka Hermon

    $18.99

    Author of Hide and Seeker, Daka Hermon, brings us a new evil lurking in our childhood games. Things haven’t been the same since Shane’s accident. One minute he was a normal kid playing a game of tag with his friends, and the next he’s the boy who came back from the dead. Now, every time Shane falls asleep, he’s pulled into a dark world where the evil Nightmare King reigns. The King is collecting children and keeping them as treasure.Despite the threat of capture by the Nightmare King, he can’t stay awake forever. Shane will have to take matters into his own hands . . . if he gives himself over to his nightmares, can he hold on to the good in himself long enough to bring down the King?

  • PRE-ORDER: Loving the Dying

    by Len Verwey

    $17.95

    PRE-ORDER: September 1, 2023

    Loving the Dying is a collection of poems on life’s different stages. Set against the backdrop of a conflicted society, Len Verwey looks at a person’s life from youth and growing up to aging and dying, considering what the ineluctable reality of death might imply about how we should think about our lives.

    These are poems of uncertainty rather than certainty. The more overtly biographical ones end with as many questions as they start with, and there is often sympathy for the outsider or the marginalized voice. Varying in tone and complexity, Verwey’s poems focus on the tension between escapism and reality, truth and delusion (for individuals and societies), and the need to face death if we are to care for the aged and learn to understand the process of dying.

    As in his first poetry collection, In a Language That You Know, Verwey continues his effort to understand the successes and failures of the South African post-apartheid journey, with both humor and some despair.

  • The Love of Singular Men

    by Victor Heringer

    $15.95

    The gripping English debut of the famous and hugely talented Brazilian writer Victor Heringer, who died tragically young. 

    In the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, one summer in the 1970s, a family—a husband and wife, their daughter, and their crippled teenage son Camilo—take in an orphan named Cosme. The boys unexpectedly fall in love, but an act of violence shatters their intimate world and changes their lives forever. Decades later, when Camilo returns to his hometown, he is haunted by his first love and the long shadow of Brazil’s military dictatorship. At once an incisive and unforgiving study of Brazilian society and a fluid, queer coming-of-age story, Victor Heringer’s exhilarating and moving novel is worthy of Machado de Assis.

  • PRE-ORDER: Julius

    by Angela Johnson

    $14.99

    PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: November 7, 2023

    A humorous and joyful celebration of love and sharing by the award-winning and bestselling duo, Angela Johnson and Dav Pilkey.

    When Maya's grandfather comes to visit from Alaska, he brings a surprise in a crate -- something, he says, to teach her "fun and sharing." Maya hopes it's a horse or a big brother. But instead, it's a huge, pink pig named Julius! Maya's parents see Julius as a slob, but Maya feels differently. She sees a playmate, a protector, and a sharer in all that's magical and wild.

    This brand-new edition of the classic picture book by award-winning author Angela Johnson and illustrator Dav Pilkey will teach a new generation of readers about friendship, affection, and sharing, with lots of laughs along the way.

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