A comprehensive, entertaining look at heroes, heroines, and critical moments from African American history -- from the slave trade to the Black Lives Matter movement -- by award-winning author Jabari Asim.

Jabari Asim goes beyond what's taught in the classroom to reveal a fact-filled history of African American history through politics, activism, sports, entertainment, music, and much more. You'll follow the road to freedom beginning with the slave trade and the middle passage through the abolitionist movement and the Civil War where many African Americans fought as soldiers. You'll learn how slave songs often contained hidden messages and how a 15-year-old Jamaican-born young man named Clive Campbell helped to create hip-hop in the early 1970's.

You'll experience the passionate speeches, marches, and movements of the Civil Rights era along with and the sacrifices of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers, and many others. Along the way there are dozens of profiles of political trailblazers like Shirley Chisholm, the first black women elected to Congress in 1968; dominants athletes like Tiger Woods who, in 1995, was only the second African American to play in a Master's Golf Tournament which he went on to win in 1997; popular musicians like Miles Davis, one the most influential artists of the twentieth century; and inspiring writers like Toni Morrison, the first African American to win the Nobel Prize in literature.

Filled with beautiful illustrations by Lynn Gaines that bring these figures and events to life, plus a removable historical timeline poster, A Child's Introduction to African American History is a fascinating and comprehensive guide to this often overlooked yet immensely important part of American history.

All human beings, says an African legend, have an animal double. Some doubles are benign, others wicked. This legend comes to life in Alain Mabanckou’s outlandish, surreal, and charmingly nonchalant Memoirs of a Porcupine.
When Kibandi, a boy living in a Congolese village, reaches the age of 11, his father takes him out into the night and forces him to drink a vile liquid from a jar that has been hidden for years in the earth. This is his initiation. From now on, he and his double, a porcupine, become accomplices in murder. They attack neighbors, fellow villagers, and people who simply cross their path, for reasons so slight that it is virtually impossible to establish connection between the killings. As he grows older, Kibandi relies on his double to act out his grizzly compulsions, until one day even the porcupine balks and turns instead to literary confession.
Winner of the Prix Renaudot, France’s equal to the National Book Award, Alain Mabanckou is considered one of the most talented writers today. He was selected by the French journal Lire as one of fifty writers to watch this coming century. And as Peter Carey suggests, he “positions himself at the margins, tapping the tradition founded by Celine, Genet, and other subversive writers.” In this superb and striking story, Mabanckou brings new power to magical realism, and is sure to excite American audiences nationwide.

Written on the twentieth anniversary of James Baldwin’s death, Letter to Jimmy is African writer Alain Mabanckou’s ode to his literary hero and an effort to place Baldwin’s life in context within the greater African diaspora.

Beginning with a chance encounter with a beggar wandering along a Santa Monica beach—a man whose ragged clothes and unsteady gait remind the author of a character out of one of James Baldwin’s novels— Mabanckou uses his own experiences as an African living in the US as a launching pad to take readers on a fascinating tour of James Baldwin’s life. As Mabanckou reads Baldwin’s work, looks at pictures of him through the years, and explores Baldwin’s checkered publishing history, he is always probing for answers about what it must have been like for the young Baldwin to live abroad as an African-American, to write obliquely about his own homosexuality, and to seek out mentors like Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison only to publicly reject them
later.

As Mabanckou travels to Paris, reads about French history and engages with contemporary readers, his letters to Baldwin grow more intimate and personal. He speaks to Baldwin as a peer—a writer who paved the way for his own work, and Mabanckou seems to believe, someone who might understand his experiences as an African expatriate.

A message in a bottle leads Sophie Washington and friends on a seaside treasure hunt in this exciting, illustrated chapter book adventure.

It's summertime, and Sophie and her best friend, Chloe and her younger brother, Cole, are spending two fun-filled weeks in Corpus Christi, Texas with her young-at-heart grandmother. A surprise discovery on a day out at the beach takes them on a quest for riches. During their search, the kids snorkel, encounter endangered sea turtles, visit a World War II warship and learn that honesty and true friendship are worth more than gold.

Sixth-grader Sophie Washington and friends learn lessons about entrepreneurship, team work, and friendship when they sign up for a city-wide, Lemonade Day event. Sophie wants to buy her mother something special for her birthday, but she's short on cash. Her bestie, Chloe, comes up with the perfect solution. Build their own lemonade stand to raise money at Lemonade Day. The girls add friends Carly and Nathan, and Sophie's little brother, Cole, to their team, and decide to donate some of their earnings to a local animal shelter to help save stray animals. Things are going great, until the family dog destroys their supplies. They get worse when Sophie tries to impress another boy in their class and upsets Nathan. Can they save their business in time for the event?

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: August 6, 2024

Learn more about Brujería, the set of practices and rituals found in traditional Latin American mysticism with this mini guide.

Developed over centuries and influenced by Indigenous, Caribbean, African, Latin, and European culture, Brujería has a unique history. This beautifully illustrated introduction will outline the primary methods, practices, rituals, tools, and terms used in Brujería. Learn about limpias, mal de ojo, crystals, cleanses, astrology, and so much more in this enchanting guide.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: August 6, 2024

The abridged paperback edition of Signs & Skymates is your ultimate guide to the astrological pairings of the zodiac—including all twelve signs and a brand-new foreword by the author—from star astrologer and founder of @ScorpioMystique and KnowTheZodiac Dossé-Via Trenou. 

Get to know yourself, your partner(s), and your friendships through the full constellation of your astrological self! In the abridged paperback edition of Signs & Skymates West African astrologer Dossé-Via Trenou explores all of the astrological pairings between the twelve signs of the zodiac—Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. 

Using astrology as a guiding light in her evolutionary approach to compatibility, Dossé-Via invites you to connect to your innermost self, and others, in new and more expansive ways. Comprehensive explorations of relationships between different signs dismantles the ideas of which signs "go together," encouraging readers to expand their ideas about each sign—including the ones in their own chart. Discover the joys, challenges, and opportunities in your relationships as you deepen your knowledge of each sign and the relationships it has with friends, lovers, family, and coworkers.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: August 6, 2024

With Plantas, Alexa Soto elegantly pays homage to Mexico's storied legacy of plant-based cooking while deftly adapting its soulful repertoire to modern times. I may still be a card-carrying carnivore, sure, but I now find myself craving dishes like her mole negro with roasted oyster mushrooms even more than my beloved carne asada. 

 - Jorge Gaviria, James Beard Award-winning author of MASA

A celebration of traditional Mexican recipes with a vibrant vegan twist for a modern audience from Alexa Soto, creator of the @alexafuelednaturally platform

Join Alexa Soto as she highlights the beauty of traditional Mexican cuisine with a plant-based twist for simple, affordable, and healthful vegan meals from breakfast to postre. Paired with Alexa's own gorgeous photography, Plantas is a joyful, welcoming guide to enjoying the traditional food of Mexico in a modern, sustainable way, a celebration of the array of fruits and vegetables that make up the staples of this beloved cuisine. Perfect for full-time vegans and those looking to incorporate more plants into their diet alike, Plantas is full of weeknight meals, snacks, salsas and cocktails that will simplify dinner and inspire your next taco night, including:
 
* Salsas and garnishes like Guacasalsa, Abue's Salsa Habanero Piña, and dairy-free Chipotle Crema
* Taco dishes from Taquitos de Jamaica to Jackfruit Mushroom Carnitas Tacos
* Main courses such as Hearts of Palm Ceviche Tostadas, Tamales de Elote, Cauliflower Al Pastor and Lasagna de Mole
* Dessert showstoppers like Tres Leches Cake, Churros and Chocoflan
* plus cocktails, coffee drinks, and nonalcoholic beverages to round out every meal

Full of traditional flavors, modern spins, stories passed down through Alexas' family and tips for bringing more plants into your life, Plantas is your resource for vibrant, decadent, and healthy meals with beloved Mexican flavors and ingredients that inspire and highlight the natural beauty and bounty of cooking with plants.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: August 6, 2024

In the latest from Shirley Jackson and Bram Stoker Award-winning author of THE DEVIL TAKES YOU HOME, a group of five teenage boys in Puerto Rico seek vengeance after one of their mothers is murdered; a Latinx STAND BY ME with a haunted, obsidianly dark heart. 

For childhood friends Gabe, Xavier, Tavo, Paul, and Bimbo, death has always been close. Hurricanes. Car accidents. Gang violence. Suicide. Estamos rodeados de fantasmas was Gabe’s grandmother’s refrain. We are surrounded by ghosts. But this time is different. Bimbo's mom has been shot dead. We’re gonna kill the guys who killed her Bimbo swears. And they all agree.

Feral with grief, Bimbo has become unrecognizable, taking no prisoners in his search for names. Soon, they learn Maria was gunned down by guys working for the drug kingpin of Puerto Rico. No one has ever gone up against him and survived. As the boys strategize, a storm gathers far from the coast. Hurricanes are known to carry evil spirits in their currents and bring them ashore, spirits which impose their own order.

Blurring the boundaries between myth, mysticism, and the grim realities of our world, House of Bone and Rain is a harrowing coming of age story; a doomed tale of devotion, the afterlife of violence, and what rolls in on the tide.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: August 20, 2024

In the tradition of Isabel Allende’s career-launching debut, The House of the Spirits, a multigenerational, Latin American saga of love and revolution in which a young man abandons his family for the cause—and receives a late-life chance at redemption: “a tour de force” from “the new master” (Luis Alberto Urrea, New York Times bestselling author of Good Night, Irene).

In 1964, Stanislavo, a zealous young man devoted to his ideals, turns his back on his privilege to join the leftist movement in the jungles of Venezuela. There, as he trains, he meets Emiliana, a nurse and fellow revolutionary. Though their intense connection seems to be love at first sight, their romance is upended by a decision with consequences that will echo down through the generations.
 
Forty years later, the country’s political landscape has drastically changed, as have the trajectories that Stanislavo and Emiliana followed in the intervening decades. When a young boy is accidentally shot on the eve of the attempted coup against President Chávez, Stanislavo’s chance encounter with the boy’s mother forces a reckoning with past missteps and the ways his actions have reverberated into the present.
 
With its epic scope, gripping narrative, and unflinching intimacy, Freedom Is a Feast announces a major new talent. Alejandro Puyana has delivered an extraordinarily wise and moving debut about sticking to one’s beliefs at the expense of pain and chaos, about the way others can suffer for our misdeeds even when we have the best of intentions, and about the possibility for redemption when love persists across time.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: August 13, 2024

Discover the history, practices, and magic of Hoodoo—from veneration of ancestors to worship rituals—in this miniature illustrated guidebook, written by a longtime practitioner.

Hoodoo is a rich cultural and spiritual tradition, created by enslaved Africans and practiced today throughout the United States. This multi-faceted practice draws on elements of African spiritual traditions, Christianity, Spiritualism, indigenous knowledge, and natural healing. This gorgeously illustrated miniature book delves into the practice, history, and profound magic of Hoodoo, and its significance for the Black community within the United States, as well as ways to incorporate this tradition into your own practice.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: July 9, 2024

Keyana is heading back to school in this exciting picture book written by bestselling author Natasha Anastasia Tarpley (I Love My Hair!) and illustrated by Charnelle Pinkney Barlow!

Keyana has come up with the perfect idea for a class project, and getting it done is pretty fun! All she has to do is pick the people and places she loves around her school. But when the teacher asks Keyana to present the project in front of everyone, she’ll have to find a little bit of confidence and a big way to share.

Praise for the KEYANA series: 

Tarpley's pleasant, relatable text and Barlow's vivid soft-pastel illustrations combine here to create a heartwarming story...This book is a beauty to behold.―Booklist

A celebration of big ideas, teamwork, and family...A loving depiction of a warm, affectionate Black family. 
 ―Kirkus

In a delightful story about Black child joy and family, Tarpley gives us an adorable and dynamic main character in Keyana, who has presence and confidence aplenty... A recommended purchase for collections needing a little more Black joy on the shelves.―School Library Journal

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: July 2, 2024

A rising movie star reunites with his high school prom date, now a personal stylist, in this delightful rom-com for fans of forced proximity, second chances, and celebrity romance.

This has to be a joke. Stylist Marley Kamal has waited years for the chance to be a private shopper for a major celebrity. But finding out that her first big client is the guy she went to prom with—and slept with and was promptly ghosted by—seems like the universe is mocking her. Because Nikhil Shamdasani is back, about to star in a major movie, and is more drop-dead hot than ever . . . at the worst possible time.

Marley’s only weeks away from an elective double mastectomy and breast reconstruction that’s supposed to save her life. But this surgery is going to change things in more ways than she can possibly imagine. For one, Nik is so eager to have her as his stylist, he’s offered to stay in her home and take care of her while she recovers. Now Marley is about to learn that as the door to her old life closes, something—or rather someone—else will enter . . . if she’s ready to let him in.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: July 16, 2024

In the tradition of New York Times bestseller The World Without Us, Princeton and Yale scholar and notable activist Philip V. McHarris imagines what society would look like in a world without police.

It’s evident that policing is a problem. But what is the way best forward? In Beyond Policing, distinguished scholar and writer Philip V. McHarris reimagines the world without police to find answers and ask, How can we make police departments obsolete? Beyond Policing tackles thorny issues with evidence, including data and personal stories, to uncover the weight of policing on people and communities and the patterns that prove police reform only leads to more policing.

McHarris challenges us to envision a future where safety is not synonymous with policing but is built on the foundation of community support and preventive measures. He explores innovative community-based safety models (like community mediators and violence interrupters), the decriminalization of driving offenses, and the creation of nonpolice crisis response teams. McHarris also outlines strategies for responding to conflict and harm in ways that transform the conditions that give rise to the issues. He asks us to imagine a world where people thrive without the shadow of inequality, where our approach to safety is a collective achievement.

McHarris writes, “What if our response to crisis wasn’t about control but about care? How can we create conditions where safety is a shared responsibility? How can we design justice so that no community is routinely oppressed? Envisioning such a world isn’t just a daydream; it’s the first step toward building a society where violence and fear no longer dictate our lives.”

Transformative and forward thinking, Beyond Policing provides a blueprint for a brighter, safer world. McHarris’s vision is clear: we must dare to move beyond policing and foster a society where everyone has the resources to thrive and feel safe.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: June 4, 2024

A radical reframing of the past and present of Black resistance—both nonviolent and violent—to white supremacy 

Black resistance to white supremacy is often reduced to a simple binary, between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolence and Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary.” In We Refuse, historian Kellie Carter Jackson urges us to move past this false choice, offering an unflinching examination of the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, particularly those pioneered by Black women.  
 
The dismissal of “Black violence” as an illegitimate form of resistance is itself a manifestation of white supremacy, a distraction from the insidious, unrelenting violence of structural racism. Force—from work stoppages and property destruction to armed revolt—has played a pivotal part in securing freedom and justice for Black people since the days of the American and Haitian Revolutions. But violence is only one tool among many. Carter Jackson examines other, no less vital tactics that have shaped the Black struggle, from the restorative power of finding joy in the face of suffering to the quiet strength of simply walking away. 
 
Clear-eyed, impassioned, and ultimately hopeful, We Refuse offers a fundamental corrective to the historical record, a love letter to Black resilience, and a path toward liberation.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: June 4, 2024

The New York Times bestselling author of Almost There delivers the start of a new rom-com series with an enemies-to-lovers romance, perfect for readers of Abby Jimenez and Jasmine Guillory.

Ashanti Wright is thrilled over the success of her doggie daycare, Barkingham Palace. But handling the business and taking care of her teen twin sisters is a lot. And now that the antics of her adorable French bulldog and poodle bestie are blowing up on social media, things are even more chaotic than usual. And they only get worse when the world’s worst dog hater shows up.

Thad Sims is not a dog person. He’s barely a person’s person. But after his grandmother is transferred to a senior living facility that doesn’t accept pets, the former army officer agrees to care for her annoying standard poodle, and his first move is taking Puddin’ out of daycare.

Now Ashanti’s beloved Duchess is bereft of her companion, social media is outraged, and Ashanti’s business is hanging in the balance. Her only option is to make nice with the surly, sexy Thad at all costs. But it’s gonna take a tiara-wearing Frenchie, a well-dressed poodle, and a whole lotta treats to teach these humans a few new tricks about falling in love.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: June 4, 2024

Follow one girl's journey to discover the joy and history of step dancing– an ode to sisterhood and a strong mother-daughter bond, perfect for fans of Bunheads.

What does sisterhood sound like? STOMP, CLAP! How does pride move? FLIP, FLAP! How do we uphold tradition? GO HARD, SNAP BACK! SOUL STEP!

Written by the mother-daughter duo Jewell Parker Rhodes and Kelly McWilliams, and gorgeously illustrated by Briana Mukodiri Uchendu, Soul Step is a loving ode to sisterhood and the tradition of stepping that lets women and girls, and people of all backgrounds, step loud and be proud.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: June 18, 2024

ONE OF THE MILLIONS’ MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2024
 
“This is an astonishingly accomplished novel…Just stunning.” – Kirkus Reviews, starred review
 
“Magnificent” – Publisher’s Weekly, starred review 
 
A stirring, unsparing novel about Black life in Philadelphia and the struggle to build intimate connections through the eyes of a struggling ex-Army grad student that “reads like a direct communication from the soul,” (Justin Torres) from the virtuoso author of Sink. 

After a deployment in the Iraq War dually defined by threat and interminable mundanity, Joseph Thomas is fighting to find his footing. Now a doctoral student at The University, and an EMS worker at the hospital in North Philly, he encounters round the clock friends and family from his past life and would-be future at his job, including contemporaries of his estranged father, a man he knows little about, serving time at Holmesburg prison for the statutory rape of his then-teenage mother. Meanwhile, he and his best friend Ray, a fellow vet, are alternatingly bonding over and struggling with their shared experience and return to civilian life, locked in their own rhythms of lust, heartbreak, and responsibility.

Balancing the joys and frustrations of single fatherhood, his studies, and ceaseless shifts at the hospital as he becomes closer than he ever imagined to his father, Joseph tries to articulate vernacular understandings of the sociopolitical struggles he recounts as participant-observer at home, against the assumptions of his friends and colleagues. GOD BLESS YOU, OTIS SPUNKMEYER is a powerful examination of every day black life—of health and sex, race and punishment, and the gaps between our desires and our politics.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: June 11, 2024

An ode to the family, friendship, and the beautiful tradition of Hoodoo practice, this book celebrates the magic and symbolism to be found in every day, written by bestselling author Nyasha Williams.

Dayo practices Hoodoo with her family. One Saturday, she wakes from an interesting dream about a yellow bird. What could it mean? She knows that it’s up to her to figure it out. Over the course of the day, as Dayo and her family move through their daily rituals (mantras and affirmations included), the message sent from her Ancestors through her dream reveals itself. This celebration of spirituality (and heritage) highlights the rich history of Hoodoo and the beauty we can find in everyday magic.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: May 7, 2024

This brilliant, adult nonfiction debut from the acclaimed MG author and poet weaves two personal narratives of recovery and reclamation, spliced with a dazzle of pop-culture

The Dead Don’t Need Reminding is a braided story of Julian Randall’s return from the cliff edge of a harrowing depression and his determination to retrace the hustle of a white-passing grandfather to the Mississippi town from which he was driven amid threats of tar and feather.
 
Alternatively wry, lyrical, and heartfelt, Randall transforms pop culture moments into deeply personal explorations of grief, family, and the American way. He envisions his fight to stay alive through a striking medley of media ranging from Into the Spiderverse and Jordan Peele movies to BoJack Horseman and the music of Odd Future. Pulsing with life, sharp, and wickedly funny, The Dead Don’t Need Reminding is Randall’s journey to get his ghost story back.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: May 7, 2024

This delightfully rhythmic story follows two children as they grow a garden from seeds.

Author and poet JaNay Brown-Wood’s cumulative tale, similar to “The House That Jack Built,” starts promisingly: “Here are the seeds that we will sow to help our garden grow.” But as time passes, the children quickly learn that things rarely go as planned in the garden. Plants will droop without enough sun and wilt without enough water. Suddenly, “OH NO!” becomes the children’s repeated refrain. Eventually, the pair come to see that nature itself provides everything a magnificent garden needs to flourish!

This engaging read-aloud doubles as a child-friendly lesson on what plants need in order to grow. Olivia Amoah’s vivid artwork brings the story to life, particularly on the spreads featuring the refrain (“OH NO!”), where readers can look at the illustrations to try to figure out what went wrong in the garden. The story covers the key elements of what makes a healthy garden, such as soil, sun, bugs, water, mushrooms and worms - and shows how balance is necessary for plants to survive. The back matter includes brief explanations of each of these key elements. This picture book offers excellent life science curriculum connections to the needs of living things, growth and changes in plants and plant life cycles.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: May 7, 2024

From the acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling author comes a soulful and lyrical novel exploring sisterhood, motherhood, faith, love, and ultimately what gets passed down from one generation to the next
 
At 40, Lena Baker is at a steady and stable moment in life—between wine nights with her two best friends and her wedding just weeks away, she’s happy in love and in friendship until a confession on her wedding day shifts her world.

Unmoored and grieving a major loss, Lena finds herself trying to teach her daughter self-love while struggling to do so herself. Lena questions everything she’s learned about dating, friendship, and motherhood, and through it all, she works tirelessly to bring the oft-forgotten Black history of Oregon to the masses, sidestepping her well-meaning co-workers that don’t understand that their good intentions are often offensive and hurtful.

Through Watson’s poetic voice, skin & bones is a stirring exploration of who society makes space for and is ultimately a story of heartbreak and healing.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: June 4, 2024

From “master of the genre” (Washington Post) Walter Mosley, Detective Easy Rawlins’ latest client sends him down a warren of memory and nostalgia—blinding him to reason and risk.

January 1970 finds Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, LA’s premier Black detective, at 50 years of age despite all expectations.  He has a loving family, a beautiful home, and a thriving investigation agency.  All is right with the world… and then Amethystine Stoller, his own personal Helen of Troy, arrives. Her ex-husband is missing. A simple enough case. But even as Easy takes his first step in the investigation he trips.  He falls into the memory of things past. Little things, like loss, love, a world war, and a hunger that has eaten at him since he was a Black boy on his own on the streets of Fifth Ward, Houston, Texas.

The missing ex, a young white man named Curt Fields, is found dead. Easy’s only real friend in the LAPD, Melvin Suggs, has gone into hiding rather than allow his femme fatale wife to go to the gas chamber.  And that’s only the beginning.

Easy finds himself pressed into a reckoning. All of his success cannot succor his heart. The 1970’s have ushered in new expectations of men and women, Black and White, and Easy has to make a choice that will almost certainly hasten a permanent descent, one that might sunder his soul.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: May 7, 2024

In this action-packed thriller from a New York Times bestselling and award-winning author, two parents facing catastrophe must find their lost children before the unthinkable can happen.
 

In London, the police storm Heathrow Airport to bring in a father for questioning about his missing daughter.
 
In Florida, a mother makes a connection between her son and the bomber, fearing he has been radicalized.
 
And in Oregon, an unknown organization’s conspiracy to bring America to its knees unfolds…
 
On the run from the authorities, the two parents are thrown together in a race against time to stop a catastrophe that will derail the country’s future forever.

But can they find their kids before it’s too late?

 
For fans of The Chain and I Am Pilgrim, this ground-breaking, blockbuster thriller is unlike any other thriller you will read this year.

PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: May 21, 2024

One hook-up is about to become one seriously hilarious situationship in this vibrant and lively romantic comedy about taking chances . . . and breaking the rules.
 
Prima ballet dancer Lillian Jackson is all about control—on stage and in bed. Which is precisely why she keeps her hook-ups to one night, and one night only. No strings. No phone numbers. No scones in the morning. There’s no room for mistakes, especially now that her dance company’s survival depends entirely on winning a million-dollar cash prize in one of America’s biggest reality competitions. That is, until one night with a certain curvy, blue-haired siren changes everything . . .

As burlesque dancer “Blue Lenox,” Izzy Wells is the queen of on-stage seduction. Almost no one knows that she’s close to losing everything—her theater, her home, and her troupe—unless she wins this competition. Now she’s going toe-to-toe with a gorgeous ballerina in front of the world. The chemistry between them is hot, but even more distracting are the feelings they’re starting to develop. There’s no way Lillian can fit Izzy into her life, and Izzy knows better than to fall for someone who can’t put her first. But if they can make it through the show with their hearts and dreams intact, they just might win the biggest prize of all.

PRE-ORDER.  WILL SHIP ON April 23, 2024.

Based on the author’s real experience, this charming and hilarious picture book follows a solitary homeowner who insists she’s much too busy to adopt a stray cat…until the cat adopts her.

Staceypants lives in a beautiful yellow house in Charm City where she stays busy fixing things, planting pretty flowers, and keeping her home clean. One day, she finds a scruffy gray cat perched on her fence. But Staceypants definitely does not want a cat. Cats scratch furniture, jump on everything, and they need a litter box!

No, this is not Staceypants’s cat. Not when the cat comes back again and again. Not when Staceypants buys the cat a fancy cat bed. Not even when she and the cat sunbathe and do porch yoga together. But what will she do when the cat that’s not her cat disappears?

The long-awaited monograph on Barkley L. Hendricks’ powerful portraits of contemporary Black subjects

Barkley L. Hendricks is rightly known as one of the foremost American painters of the late 20th century. His six-decade artistic oeuvre encompasses not only portraits but also includes evocative landscapes, hard-edged geometric abstractions, lush watercolors on paper and singular photographs informed by his studies with Walker Evans. This final publication of a five-volume set dedicated to the artist is a 300-page monograph that captures his full evolution as a portraitist.
Solid! is a compilation of Hendricks’ acclaimed figurative paintings: large-scale canvases of distinctively dressed (or undressed) individuals, including several self-portraits, against solid-color backgrounds. Critical essays from curators and fellow artists provide further, often personal, insight into all aspects of Hendricks’ practice: probing his photographic experimentation as a forbear to contemporary street photography; celebrating his sensitivity as a colorist whose unique expertise seamlessly combines oil-based and water-based pigments; and highlighting the observational genuineness in his provocative and personal interpretations of women, of unapologetically visible queer identities and of his own beloved Black communities across the African Diaspora. The book closes with a conversation between Trevor Schoonmaker and Barkley’s widow, Susan Hendricks, in which she recounts their trips to Jamaica and Barkley’s process for creating landscape and fruit paintings outdoors.
Barkley L. Hendricks (1945–2017) was born in Philadelphia and trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Yale. His life-size paintings of everyday Black Americans have inspired generations of artists. Hendricks gave up painting in favor of photography, but returned to oil portraits later in life. He taught at Connecticut College from 1972 until 2010.

PRE-ORDER ONLY. Will ship on August 27, 2024.

Updated documentation of The Theater of Refusal on the exhibition's 30th anniversary

In 1993, at the University of California, Irvine, Charles Gaines and Catherine Lord mounted a category-breaking exhibition of Black artists from different generations, working across Fluxus, Conceptualism, assemblage, photography and installation. Challenging the racializing of Black artists’ work, the exhibition confronted the discourse around race difference in the United States by including excerpts of writing by art critics who had discussed the featured artists. On the 30th anniversary of this event, this publication reprints the eponymous 1993 volume documenting the show, which contained essays by Gaines, Lord and Berger, and the transcript of a roundtable of artists and writers. Reproducing images of the exhibition in color for the first time, this new edition augments the original publication with an essay by poet and scholar Fred Moten; recent conversations between Lord and Gaines; an interview with Gaines by Moten; and a new roundtable discussion moderated and edited by curator Jamillah James and Thomas (T.) Jean Lax.
Artists include: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Renée Green, David Hammons, Ben Patterson, Sandra Rowe, Gary Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems.

How modern and contemporary artists across the African and Caribbean diasporas transformed European Surrealism into a tool for Black expression

On the centennial anniversary of André Breton’s first Surrealist Manifesto, Surrealism and Us shines new light on how Surrealism was consumed and transformed in the Caribbean and the United States. It brings together more than 50 works from the 1940s to the present that convey how Caribbean and African diasporic artists reclaimed a European avant-garde for their own purposes.
Since its inception, the Surrealist movement―and many other European art movements of the early 20th century―embraced and transformed African art, poetry and music traditions. Concurrently, artists in the Americas proposed subsets of Surrealism more closely tied to African diasporic culture. In Martinique, Aimé and Suzanne Césaire proposed a Caribbean Surrealism that challenged principles of order and reason and embraced African spiritualities. Meanwhile, artists in the United States such as Romare Bearden and Ted Joans engaged deeply with Surrealist ideas. These trends lasted far beyond those of their European counterparts. Indeed, the term “Afro-surrealism” was created by poet Amiri Baraka in 1974; today the movement still flourishes in tandem with Afrofuturism. The Surrealism and Us catalog is divided into three themes: “To Dare,” “Invisibility” and “Super/Reality”. These sections, galvanized by scholarly essays, create transnational and multi-generational connections between Black life and artistic practice over the past 100 years.
Artists include: Firelei Báez, Agustin Cárdenas, Myrlande Constant, Rafael Ferrer, Ja’Tovia Gary, Hector Hyppolite, Ted Joans, Wifredo Lam, Simone Leigh, Kerry James Marshall.

PRE - ORDER: On Sale: October 8, 2024 

The award-winning, platinum selling rapper, songwriter, and television personality shares her unforgettable story of coming of age in Miami, her inevitable rise to stardom, and her enduring legacy as a Hip-Hop Icon.

Growing up in the Liberty City area of Miami, Florida, Katrina “Trina” Taylor spent her childhood feeling relatively sheltered by her mother and stepfather. Trina and her mother had an unbreakable bond and Liberty City felt like a playground made just for her. And even at a young age, Trina knew what she wanted: to be a powerful, successful, and magnetic woman, a woman who was entirely self-reliant and independent. She dreamed of becoming a dancer, sexy and sparkling in the background of rap music videos she saw being filmed around Liberty City. Little did she know, she’d eventually be the star of the videos, and a founding Queen of rap.

In Da Baddest, Trina’s voice is, as always, powerful, insightful, witty, and provocative, while also showcasing her vulnerability and deep love for her family, home, and music. This evocative look into Trina’s upbringing and life as a rap icon proves why she is the blueprint, how she helped pave the way for the future of female rappers and hip-hop artists, and why no one but her can hold the title of “The Baddest B*tch.”