All Books

  • A Song for the Unsung: Bayard Rustin, the Man Behind the 1963 March on Washington

    by Courtney Ahn

    $19.99

    *ships/available for pickup in 7-10 business days

    The author of Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom and the author of Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag combine their tremendous talents for a singular picture book biography of Bayard Rustin, the gay Black man behind the March on Washington of 1963.

    On August 28, 1963, a quarter of a million activists and demonstrators from every corner of America convened for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was there and then that they raised their voices in unison for racial and economic justice for all Black Americans, to call out inequities, and, ultimately, to advance the Civil Rights Movement.

    Every movement has its unsung heroes. Individuals in the background who work without praise and accolades, who toil and struggle without notice. One of those unsung heroes was at the center of some of the most important decisions and events of the Civil Rights Movement.

    Credited with introducing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to the power of peaceful protest, for orchestrating the March on Washington, and for skillfully composing the program that placed Dr. King at the end of the list of speakers and musicians for what would become his historic “I Have a Dream” speech, this unsung hero will be celebrated for the first time in a picture book.

    The unsung hero behind the movement was a quiet man. A gay, African American man. He was Bayard Rustin. On the heels of the sixtieth anniversary of this historic moment, two acclaimed picture book authors tell Bayard's inspiring story in an innovative and timeless book. A Song for the Unsung is the rousing story of one of our nation's greatest calls to action by honoring one of the men who made it happen.

  • RESPECT: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul

    by Carole Boston Weatherford

    $18.99
    Winner of the Coretta Scott King Illustration Award! From a New York Times bestselling author and an acclaimed illustrator comes this vibrant portrait of Aretha Franklin that pays her the R-E-S-P-E-C-T this Queen of Soul deserves.

    Aretha Franklin was born to sing. The daughter of a pastor and a gospel singer, her musical talent was clear from her earliest days in her father’s Detroit church where her soaring voice spanned more than three octaves.

    Her string of hit songs earned her the title “the Queen of Soul,” multiple Grammy Awards, and a place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But Aretha didn’t just raise her voice in song, she also spoke out against injustice and fought for civil rights.

    This authoritative, rhythmic, Coretta Scott King Illustration Award–winning picture book biography will captivate young readers with Aretha’s inspiring story.
  • Sugar Pie Lullaby: The Soul of Motown in a Song of Love

    by Carole Weatherford

    $14.99

     

    *ships in 7-10 business days

    Celebrate the love between a child and caring adult with this soulful poetic lullaby

    Are you a lover of rhythm and blues? Shoo-be-do-wop along with your little ones, as you introduce them to the legendary music of the Motown era. Enjoy a jazzy drift into dreamland, filled with sentiment and heart, as together, child and caring adult can share their musical love in this bedtime lullaby—along with interesting background information about Motown legends!

    Baby love,

    Little bitty precious one,

    I was born to love you.

    What else is there to do?

    You are the sunshine of my life.

    Morning, noon and night

    All I do is thank God for you.

  • Radical Justice: Lifting Every Voice

    by Accra Shepp

    Sold out

    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

    Radical Justice brings together two bodies of socially-engaged photographic portraiture by Accra Shepp, who has documented New York City’s Occupy Wall Street movement starting in 2011 and its racial justice/BLM protests since 2020.  

    Working in the style of August Sander with a large format camera and black and white film, Shepp pictures fellow New Yorkers on their city’s streets in acts of sit-ins and active protest, both unplanned and highly organized, both independent and unified, to address notions of the 99% and 1%, which have become part of the American political vernacular.  Bearing witness to defining events of the last decade that echo the United States’ longer historical arch, Shepp’s empathetic depictions of fellow citizens standing up for the fair protection of the Constitution provide a prophetic mirror of current events, which reflects back centuries to where the American experiment began, to suggest where we’ll find ourselves in the years to come.

  • Better Than We Found It: Conversations to Help Save the World

    by Frederick Joseph and Porsche Joseph

    $19.99

    *ships/available for pickup in 7-10 business days

    Every generation inherits the problems created by the ones before them, but no generation will inherit as many problems—as many crises—as the current generation of young people. From the devastations of climate change to the horrors of gun violence, from rampant transphobia to the widening wealth gap, from the lack of health care to the lack of housing, the challenges facing the next generation can feel insurmountable. But change, even revolution, is possible; you just have to know where to start. In Better Than We Found It, best-selling author Frederick Joseph and debut author Porsche Joseph make the case for addressing some of the biggest issues of our day. Featuring more than two dozen interviews with prominent activists, authors, actors, and politicians, this is the essential resource for those who want to make the world better than we found it.

  • The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person

    by Frederick Jospeh

    Sold out
    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*
    “We don’t see color.” “I didn’t know Black people liked Star Wars!” “What hood are you from?” As a student in a largely white high school, Frederick Joseph often simply let wince-worthy moments go. When he grew older, he saw them as missed opportunities to stand up for himself and bring awareness to those who didn’t see the hurt they caused. Here, Joseph speaks to the reader as he wishes he’d spoken to his friends, unpacking hurtful race-related anecdotes from his past and sharing how he might handle things differently now. Each chapter also features the voice and experience of an artist or activist, including Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give; April Reign, creator of #OscarsSoWhite; and Jemele Hill, sports journalist and podcast host. From cultural appropriation to power dynamics, “reverse racism” to white privilege, this book is a conversation starter, tool kit, and window into the life of a former “token Black kid.” Back matter includes an encyclopedia of racism, including details on historical events and terminology.
  • Butter: Novellas, Stories, and Fragments

    by Gayl Jones

    $24.95

    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

     

    A wide-ranging collection, including two novellas and ten stories exploring complex identities, from the acclaimed author of Corregidora, The Healing, and Palmares.


    “Gayl Jones’s work represents a watershed in American literature. From a literary standpoint, her form is impeccable . . . and as a Black woman writer, her truth-telling, filled with beauty, tragedy, humor, and incisiveness, is unmatched.”
    —Imani Perry, author of Looking for Lorraine and Breathe

    Gayl Jones, who was first edited by Toni Morrison, has been described as one of the great literary writers of the 20th century and was recently a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. This new collection of short fiction is only the second in her rich career and one that displays her strengths in the genre in many facets. Opening with two novella-length works, “Butter” and “Sophia,” this collection features Jones’s legendary talents in a range of settings and styles, from the hyperrealist to the mystical, in intricate multipart stories, in more traditional forms, and even in short fragments.

    Her narrators are women and men, Black, Brown, Indigenous; her settings are historical and contemporary, in South America, Mexico, and the US; her themes center on complex identities, unorthodox longings and aspirations. She writes about spies, photographers, playground designers, cartoonists, and baristas; about workers and revolutionaries, about environmentalism, feminism, poetry, film, and love, but above all about our multicultural, multiethnic, and multiracial society.

  • All Rise: The Story of Ketanji Brown Jackson

    by Carole Boston Weatherford

    $18.99

    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

    Multi award-winning author Carole Boston Weatherford delivers a message of perseverance, dignity, and honor in this picture book biography of Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

    Whatever she did, wherever she was, Ketanji Brown Jackson rose to the top.


    From the time their daughter was born, Ketanji Brown’s parents taught her that if she worked hard and believed in herself, she could do anything. As a child, Ketanji focused on her studies and excelled, eventually graduating from Harvard Law School. 

    Years later, in 2016, when she was a federal judge, a seat opened on the United States Supreme Court. In a letter to then-President Barack Obama, Leila Jackson made a case for her mother—Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Although the timing didn’t work out then, it did in 2022, when President Joe Biden nominated her. At her confirmation, Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first Black female Supreme Court justice in the United States.

    Lyrical text by renowned author Carole Boston Weatherford and evocative illustrations by Ashley Evans combine to make this an inspirational and timely read.

  • Jamel Shabazz: Albums
    Sold out

    Photo albums from the archives of the iconic chronicler of New York's 1980s rap, hip-hop and Black culture

    The influential Brooklyn-based photographer Jamel Shabazz has been making portraits of New Yorkers for more than 40 years, creating an archive of cultural shifts and struggles across the city. His portraits of different communities underscore the street as a space for self-presentation, whether through fashion or pose. In every instance Shabazz aims, in his words, to represent individuals and communities with “honor and dignity.” This book—awarded the Gordon Parks Foundation/Steidl Book Prize—presents, for the first time, Shabazz’s work from the 1970s to ’90s as it exists in his archive: small prints thematically grouped and sequenced in traditional family photo albums that function as portable portfolios.
    Shabazz began making portraits in the mid-1970s in Brooklyn, Queens, the West Village and Harlem. His camera was also at his side while working as an officer at Rikers Island in the 1980s, where he took portraits of inmates. This book features selections from over a dozen albums, many previously unseen, and includes his earliest photographs as well as images taken inside Rikers Island, all accompanied by essays that situate Shabazz’s work within the broader history of photography.
    Born and raised in Brooklyn, Jamel Shabazz (born 1960) picked up his first camera at the age of 15 and began documenting his communities, inspired by photographers such as Leonard Freed, James Van Der Zee and Gordon Parks. His work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including those at the Brooklyn Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Shabazz is the author of Back in the Days (2001) and Sights in the City (2017).

  • When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting

    edited by Koyo Kouoh

    Sold out

    *ships in 7-10 business days

    This landmark publication accompanies an international touring exhibition devoted to Black figuration in painting from the 1920s to now, featuring artists from Africa and the African diaspora.

    Published to accompany a major exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA, CapeTown, When We See Us presents a comprehensive exploration of Black representation through portraiture and figuration, celebrating Black subjectivity and Black consciousness from Pan-African and Pan-Diasporic perspectives.

    In the past decade, figurative painting by Black artists has risento a new prominence in the field of contemporary art. This timely and revelatory book highlights the many ways in which artists critically engage with notions of blackness, contributing to the critical discourse on topics such as Pan-Africanism, the Civil Rights Movement, African Liberation and Independence movements, the Anti-Apartheid and Black Consciousness mobilizations, Decoloniality, and Black Lives Matter.

    With a primary focus on figurative painting, When We See Us explores how Black artists have imagined, positioned, memorialized, and asserted African and African diasporic experiences from the early 20th century to the present day. Featuring more than 200 works of art—and contributions from well-known writers such as Ken Bugul, Maaza Mengiste, Robin Coste Lewis, and Bill Kouelany—When We See Us is a major contribution to our understanding of Black art that will appeal to anyone interested in modern and contemporary figurative art and Black cultural history.

  • Into the Light

    by Mark Oshiro

    Sold out

    Award-winning author Mark Oshiro (Anger is a Gift) returns with a new contemporary coming-of-age novel laced with a twisty, dark mystery you’ll have to read to believe.

    KEEP YOUR SECRETS CLOSE TO HOME
    It’s been one year since Manny was cast out of his family and driven into the wilderness of the American Southwest. Since then, Manny lives by self-taught rules that keep him moving—and keep him alive. Now, he’s taking a chance on a traveling situation with the Varela family, whose attractive but surly son, Carlos, seems to promise a new future.

    Eli abides by the rules of his family, living in a secluded community that raised him to believe his obedience will be rewarded. But an unsettling question slowly eats away at Eli’s once unwavering faith in Reconciliation: Why can’t he remember his past?

    But the reported discovery of an unidentified body found in the hills of Idyllwild, California, will draw both of these young men into facing their biggest fears and confronting their own identity—and who they are allowed to be.

    For fans of Courtney Summers and Tiffany D. Jackson, Into the Light is a ripped-from-the-headlines story with Oshiro's signature mix of raw emotions and visceral prose—but with a startling twist you’ll have to read to believe.

  • Saints of the Household

    by Ari Tison

    $19.99

    *ships in 7-10 business days*

     

    Won at auction, this haunting contemporary YA about an act of violence in a small town—beautifully told by a debut Bribri (Indigenous Costa Rican) poet and storyteller—explores brotherhood, abuse, recovery, and doing the right thing.

     

    Max and Jay depend on each other. Growing up in Minnesota with a physically abusive father, the two Bribri American brothers have learned to protect themselves and their mom by keeping their heads down.

    But when they hear a classmate in trouble in the woods, instinct takes over and they break up a fight, harming their school's star soccer player in the process. This act of violence threatens the brothers' dreams for the future. As the true details of that fateful afternoon unfold, Max and Jay grapple with the weight of their actions. They'll have to reach back to their Bribri roots to find their way forward.

    Told in alternating points of view, using vignettes and poems, debut author Ari Tison crafts an emotional, slow-burning drama that will take your breath away.

  • Trace Evidence: Poems

    by Charif Shanahan

    $16.95

    In Trace Evidence, the urgent follow-up to his award-winning debut Into Each Room We Enter without Knowing, Charif Shanahan continues his piercing meditations on the intricacies of mixed-race identity, queer desire, time, mortality, and the legacies of anti-Blackness in the US and abroad. At the collection’s center sits “On the Overnight from Agadir,” a poem that chronicles Shanahan’s survival of a devastating bus accident in Morocco, his mother’s birth country, and ruminates on home, belonging, and the mysteries of fate. With rich lyricism, power, and tenderness, Trace Evidence centers the racial periphery and excavates the vestiges of our violent colonial past in the most intimate aspects of our lives. In a language yoked equally to the physical and metaphysical worlds, the poet articulates the need we all share for real intimacy and connection, and proves, time and again, that the true cost of our separateness is the love that our survival requires.

  • Homegirls & Handgrenades

    by Sonia Sanchez

    $17.95

    Winner of the American Book Award
    A classic of the Black Arts Movement brought back to life in a refreshed edition


    "A lion in literature's forest. When she writes she roars, and when she sleeps other creatures walk gingerly."— Maya Angelou

    Originally published in 1984, this collection of prose, prose poems and lyric verses is as fresh and radical today as it was then. Sonia Sanchez, the premiere poet of the Black Arts Movement, shows the “razor blades” in clenched in her teeth in these powerful pieces.

  • The Black Technical Object: On Machine Learning and the Aspiration of Black Being by Ramon Amaro
    $25.00

    *ships in 7-10 business days

    On the abstruse nature of machine learning, mathematics, and the deep incursion of racial hierarchy.

    To impair the racial ordering of the world, The Black Technical Object introduces the history of statistical analysis and “scientific” racism into research on machine learning. Computer programming designed for taxonomic patterning, machine learning offers useful insights into racism and racist behavior, but its connection to the racial history of science and the Black lived experience has yet to be developed. In this book, Ramon Amaro explores how the history of data and statistical analysis informs the complex relationship between race and machine learning. He juxtaposes a practical analysis of this type of computerized learning with a theory of Black alienation in order to inspire alternative approaches to contemporary algorithmic practice. In doing so, Amaro contemplates the abstruse nature of programming and mathematics, as well as the deep incursion of racial hierarchies.

    Series Overview: In the decades that followed the demise of decolonial struggles and the end of the USSR, a great deal of intellectual effort was devoted to conceptualizing political emancipation as freedom from the masses rather than freedom for the masses. Focusing on connectivity rather than on collectivity, these modalities of political action led to depoliticizing effects and to a certain counter-political ethos expressed in terms such as parapolitics, psychopolitics, or micropolitics, all which this series terms “antipolitical.” Rather than counter the arguments that each term puts forth, On the Antipolitical, edited by Ana Teixeira Pinto, suggests historizing this disposition, situating it within the neocolonial continuum that animates the digital frontier as the new locus of settler becoming.

  • Blk + Vegan: Full-Flavor, Protein-Packed Recipes from My Kitchen to Yours

    by Emani Corcran

    $23.99

    Vegan blogger Emani Corcran honors the roots of her culture by remembering and reworking the important foods of her childhood into healthier, vegan versions.

    Delicious Vegan Dishes to Feed Your Body + Soul

    Pursue a plant-based diet without sacrificing the dishes you love with these healthy, vegan comfort food recipes that are as delicious as they are nutrient dense. A passion project for long-time vegan and popular food blogger Emani Corcran, this recipe book pays homage to her favorite family dishes and her experiences growing up immersed in Black food culture. Try her vegan twist on Classic Jambalaya, share Caribbean Rice and Beans with friends or savor her aunt’s recipe for mouthwatering spiced waffles.

    For vegan newcomers and plant-based lovers alike, these hearty meals are all about honoring your body and celebrating the tasty ingredients that fuel it. No matter what you're craving, Emani has a nutritious, homestyle recipe to satisfy your appetite.

  • Malola's Museum Adventures: Career Day

    by Joelle Avelino

    Sold out

    *Ships in 7-10 business days*

    Blue skies, empty land—and enough room to hide away a horrifying secret. Or is there? Discover a haunting new vision of the American West from the award-winning author of The Changeling.

    Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk is opened, people around her start to disappear...

    The year is 1914, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, and forced her to flee her hometown of Redondo, California, in a hellfire rush, ready to make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will be one of the "lone women" taking advantage of the government's offer of free land for those who can cultivate it—except that Adelaide isn't alone. And the secret she's tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing keeping her alive.

    Told in Victor LaValle's signature style, blending historical fiction, shimmering prose, and inventive horror, Lone Women is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—and a portrait of early twentieth-century America like you've never seen.

  • Feminism

    by Bernardine Evaristo

    $15.00

    Ships in 7-10 business days

    Feminism is a powerful new interpretation of British art from an intersectional feminist perspective, penned by one of Britain’s greatest writers

    “Art museums have long drawn me into their spaces. The infinite possibilities of the language of art opens me up to methods of communication quite unlike my own. I am fascinated by the most interesting and adventurous artists, who are surely among the most innovative thinkers on the planet. I am in awe of their talent and endless inventiveness, and my imagination is nourished by theirs. I am challenged to think differently about how we might understand, recreate, reshape, reimagine life itself—animate, inanimate, spirit. My senses are stimulated, my emotions stirred, my brain whirs away in the background and I feel very much alive. When I was invited to write this book, my first time writing about art, I immediately knew that I would turn my attention on women and womxn (to include non-binary people) of color in British art because, similar to the story throughout the arts, either as creator or curator, we haven’t been very visible. This book is personal—about the art I’ve seen, and the art I’ve loved—and my interpretation of the art in the national collection and beyond, from an intersectional feminist perspective.”

  • Wish of the Wicked

    by Danielle Paige

    $19.99

    *ships in 7 - 10 business days*

    Bestselling author Danielle Paige puts a dark YA spin on Cinderella’s fairy godmother in this new origin story of magic and revenge.

    Everyone knows a fairy godmother helped Cinderella get to the ball. But no one knows why.

    For centuries, Farrow’s family has used their magic to guide the Queendom. Until the new queen outlaws magic and executes them all. Only Farrow manages to survive, but her magic is left warped: she can now only use it to fill the wishes of others.
    Farrow dreams of nothing but revenge. The best way to reach the queen is through her son, who is nearing the age when he will need a bride. But the closer Farrow gets to the prince, the more she finds herself drawn to him. To reclaim her magic and destroy the queen, Farrow will have to question what—and who—she’s willing to sacrifice.
    Bestselling author Danielle Paige launches a new series full of intrigue, magic, and romance, set in a lush fairy-tale inspired world.

  • Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness

    by Simone Browne

    $25.95
    *ships in 7-10 business days
    Simone Browne shows how racial ideologies and the long history of policing black bodies under transatlantic slavery structure contemporary surveillance technologies and practices. Analyzing a wide array of archival and contemporary texts, she demonstrates how surveillance reifies boundaries, borders, and bodies around racial lines.


    In Dark Matters Simone Browne locates the conditions of blackness as a key site through which surveillance is practiced, narrated, and resisted. She shows how contemporary surveillance technologies and practices are informed by the long history of racial formation and by the methods of policing black life under slavery, such as branding, runaway slave notices, and lantern laws. Placing surveillance studies into conversation with the archive of transatlantic slavery and its afterlife, Browne draws from black feminist theory, sociology, and cultural studies to analyze texts as diverse as the methods of surveilling blackness she discusses: from the design of the eighteenth-century slave ship Brooks, Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, and The Book of Negroes, to contemporary art, literature, biometrics, and post-9/11 airport security practices. Surveillance, Browne asserts, is both a discursive and material practice that reifies boundaries, borders, and bodies around racial lines, so much so that the surveillance of blackness has long been, and continues to be, a social and political norm. 
  • Hands

    by Torrey Maldonado

    $16.99

    *ships in 7-10 business days*

    "Gorgeous and gripping, Hands is a poetic page-turner. You might just finish it in one sitting. Torrey Maldonado understands the kids he writes for at the deepest level.” —Adam Gidwitz, Newbery Honor–winning author of The Inquisitor’s Tale

    The author of What Lane? and Tight delivers a fast-paced read that packs a punch about a boy figuring out how to best use his hands—to build or to knock down.


    Trev would do anything to protect his mom and sisters, especially from his stepdad. But his stepdad’s return stresses Trev—because when he left, he threatened Trev’s mom. Rather than live scared, Trev takes matters into his own hands, literally. He starts learning to box to handle his stepdad. But everyone isn’t a fan of his plan, because Trev’s a talented artist, and his hands could actually help him build a better future. And they’re letting him know. But their advice for some distant future feels useless in his reality right now. Ultimately, Trev knows his future is in his hands, and his hands are his own, and he has to choose how to use them.

  • The Neighbor Favor

    by Kristina Forest

    $19.00

    A shy bookworm enlists her charming neighbor to help her score a date, not knowing he’s the obscure author she’s been corresponding with, in this sparkling and heart-fluttering romance by Kristina Forest.

    Shy, bookish, and admittedly awkward, Lily Greene has always felt inadequate compared to the rest of her accomplished family, who strive for Black excellence. She dreams of becoming a children’s book editor, but she’s been frustratingly stuck in the nonfiction division for years without a promotion in sight. Lily finds escapism in her correspondences with her favorite fantasy author, and what begins as two lonely people connecting over email turns into a tentative friendship and possibly something else Lily won’t let herself entertain—until he ghosts her without a word.

    Months later, Lily is still crushed, but she’s determined to get a hold of her life, starting with finding a date to her sister’s wedding. And the perfect person to help her is Nick Brown, her charming, attractive new neighbor, who she feels drawn to for reasons she can’t explain. But little does she know, Nick is an author—her favorite fantasy author.

    Nick, who has his reasons for using a pen name and pushing people away, soon realizes that the beautiful, quiet girl from down the hall is the same Lily he fell in love with over email months ago. Unwilling to complicate things even more between them, he agrees to set her up with someone else, though this simple favor between two neighbors is anything but—not when he can't get her off his mind...

  • Time's Undoing: A Novel

    by Cheryl Head

    $28.00

    *Ships in 7-10 business days

    A searing and tender novel about a young Black journalist’s search for answers in the unsolved murder of her great-grandfather in segregated Birmingham, Alabama decades ago – inspired by the author’s own family history.

    Birmingham, 1929: Robert Lee Harrington, a master carpenter, has just moved to Alabama to pursue a job opportunity, bringing along his pregnant wife and young daughter. Birmingham is in its heyday, known as the “Magic City” for its booming steel industry, and while Robert and his family find much to enjoy in the city’s busy markets and vibrant night life – it’s also a stronghold for the Klan. And with his beautiful, light-skinned wife and snazzy car, Robert begins to worry that he might be drawing the wrong kind of attention. 

    2019: Meghan Mackenzie, the youngest reporter at the Detroit Free Press, has grown up hearing family lore about her great-grandfather’s murder—but no one knows the full story of what really happened back then, and his body was never found. Determined to find answers to her family’s long-buried tragedy, and spurred by the urgency of the Black Lives Matter movement, Meghan travels to Birmingham. But as her investigation begins to uncover dark secrets that spider across both the city and time, her life may be in danger.  

    Inspired by true events, Time’s Undoing is both a passionate tale of one woman’s quest for the truth behind the racially motivated trauma that has haunted her family for generations, and, as newfound friends and supporters in Birmingham rally around Meghan’s search, the uplifting story of a community coming together to fight for change.

  • Not an Easy Win

    by Chrystal D. Giles

    $16.99

    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

    Can Lawrence figure out how to get on the board, even though the odds are stacked against him?

    Introducing a powerful novel about family, forgiveness, and figuring out who you are when you don’t make the rules—just right for middle-grade fans of Nic Stone and Jason Reynolds.


    Lawrence is ready for a win. . . .

    Nothing’s gone right for Lawrence since he had to move from Charlotte to Larenville, North Carolina, to live with his granny. When Lawrence ends up in one too many fights at his new school, he gets expelled. The fight wasn’t his fault, but since his pop’s been gone, it feels like no one listens to what Lawrence has to say.

    Instead of going to school, Lawrence starts spending his days at the rec center, helping out a neighbor who runs a chess program. Some of the kids in the program will be picked to compete in the Charlotte Classic chess tournament. Could this be Lawrence's chance to go home?

    Lawrence doesn’t know anything about chess, but something about the center—and the kids there—feels right. Lawrence thought the game was over . . . but does he have more moves left than he thought?

  • Every Man a King: A King Oliver Novel

    by Walter Mosley

    Sold out

     

    *Ships in 7-10 business days*

    In this highly anticipated sequel to the Edgar award winner Down the River Unto the Sea, Joe King Oliver is entangled in a dangerous case when he's asked to investigate whether a white nationalist is being unjustly set up.

    When friend of the family and multi-billionaire Roger Ferris comes to Joe with an assignment, he’s got no choice but to accept, even if the case is a tough one to stomach. White nationalist Alfred Xavier Quiller has been accused of murder and the sale of sensitive information to the Russians. Ferris has reason to believe Quiller’s been set up and he needs King to see if the charges hold.

    This linear assignment becomes a winding quest to uncover the extent of Quiller’s dealings, to understand Ferris’ skin in the game, and to get to the bottom of who is working for whom. Even with the help of bodyguard and mercenary Oliya Ruez—no regular girl Friday—the machine King’s up against proves relentless and unsparing. As King gets closer to exposing the truth, he and his loved ones barrel towards grave danger.

    Mosley once again proves himself a "master of craft and narrative" (National Book Foundation) in this carefully plotted mystery that is at once a classic caper, a family saga and an examination of fealty, pride and how deep debt can go.

  • The Case for Cancel Culture: How This Democratic Tool Works to Liberate Us All

    by Ernest Owens

    $26.99

    *ships in 7 -10 business days*

    The first major case for cancel culture as a fundamental means of democratic expression throughout history, and timely necessity aimed at combating systems of oppression.

    “___ is canceled.” Chances are, you’ve heard this a lot lately. What was once a niche digital term has been legitimized in the discourse of presidents, politicians, and lawmakers.

    But what really is cancel culture? It’s time to raise the bar on our definition-- to think of cancel culture less as scandal or suppression, and more as an essential means of democratic expression and accountability.

    The Case for Cancel Culture does just that. This cultural critique from award-winning journalist Ernest Owens offers a fresh progressive lens in favor of cancel culture as a tool for activism and change. It will help readers reflect on and learn the long history of canceling, how the left and right uniquely equip it as part of their political toolkits; how intersections of society wield it for justice; and ultimately how it levels the playing field for the everyday person’s voice to matter.

    In a world where protest and free speech are being challenged by the most powerful institutions, those without power deserve to understand the nuance and importance of this democratic tool available to them.
    Readers will walk away from this first-of-its-kind exploration not despising cancel culture but embracing it as a form of democratic expression that’s always been leading the charge in liberating us all.

  • Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression

    by Nana-Ama Danquah

    $17.95

    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

    The first book to focus on Black women and depression, through the author’s “absorbing and inspirational” (Washington Post) personal journey.

     

    When Nana-Ama Danquah, a twenty-two-year-old single mother, began to suffer from a variety of depressive symptoms after giving birth to her daughter, she thought she was going crazy. Determined to portray strength in a world that often undervalues Black women’s lives, she shrouded her debilitating despair in silence and denial. But when she befriends other Black women who suffer with depression, she finds the support she needs to confront the traumatic childhood events that lie beneath her grief. Twenty-five years after its initial publication, as best-selling author Andrew Solomon writes in an illuminating foreword, Willow Weep for Me “remains a brave book . . . but at the time of its writing it was humblingly audacious.” Also including an afterword from the author, this groundbreaking classic is a powerful meditation on courage and a litany for survival.

    “An important and moving memoir. [Danquah] describes beautifully her experiences with depression.” —Kay Redfield Jamison, author of An Unquiet Mind

  • The Everlasting Rose (The Belles series, Book 2) by Dhonielle Clayton
    $11.99

    *ships in 7-10 business days*


    In this sequel to the New York Times best-selling novel, The Belles, Camellia Beaureguard, the former favorite Belle, must race against time to find the ailing Princess Charlotte, who has disappeared without a trace.

    The evil queen Sophia’s imperial forces will stop at nothing to keep Camille, her sister Edel, and her loyal guard, Rémy, from returning Charlotte to the palace and her rightful place as queen.

    With the help of an underground resistance movement called the Iron Ladies–a society that rejects beauty treatments entirely–and the backing of alternative newspaper the Spider’s Web, Camille uses her powers, her connections, and her cunning to outwit her greatest nemesis, Sophia, and attempt to restore peace to Orléans. But enemies lurk in the most unexpected places, forcing Camille to decide just how much she’s willing to sacrifice to save her people.

    Nothing is what it seems in this must-read sequel to the instant New York Times best-seller.

  • The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton
    $11.99

    Catalog Copy: *"With wonderfully descriptive language, Clayton builds a grand and lavish world, carefully chipping away at the veneer to reveal its dark, sinister interior... A refreshingly original concept, this substantial fantasy...is an undeniable page-turner." Kirkus Reviews, starred review

    A twisted world. A beautiful power.

    Camellia Beauregard is a Belle. In the opulent world of Orléans, Belles are revered, for they control Beauty, and Beauty is a commodity coveted above all else. In Orléans, the people are born gray, they are born damned, and only with the help of a Belle and her talents can they transform and be made beautiful.

    But it’s not enough for Camellia to be just a Belle. She wants to be the favorite—the Belle chosen by the Queen of Orléans to live in the royal palace, to tend to the royal family and their court, to be recognized as the most talented Belle in the land.

    But once Camellia and her Belle sisters arrive at court, it becomes clear that being the favorite is not everything she always dreamed it would be. Behind the gilded palace walls live dark secrets, and Camellia soon learns that the very essence of her existence is a lie—that her powers are far greater, and could be more dangerous, than she ever imagined. And when the queen asks Camellia to risk her own life and help the ailing princess by using Belle powers in unintended ways, Camellia now faces an impossible decision.

  • The Beauty Trials (A Belles novel)

    by Dhonielle Clayton

    $18.99

    Catalog Copy: In this all-new novel from the world of Dhonielle Clayton’s sweeping, lush Belles series, rebellious, outspoken, fan-favorite Edel Beauregard enters the Beauty Trials—a deadly competition to find the next Queen of Orléans.

    Sophia, the dangerous and erratic former queen, has been imprisoned, restoring peace to Orléans. Now her sister, Charlotte, sits on the throne and has decided to invoke the ancient tradition of the Beauty Trials—a series of harrowing tests meant to find the true ruler of Orléans. Edel, who has always aspired to be more than a Belle, decides to enter and, after promising to bind her arcana to keep from having an unnatural advantage, joins a few dozen other hopefuls intent on becoming the next Queen of Orléans.

    But the Trials are far worse than any of them bargained for. As the women are put through tasks that test their strength, confidence, composure, and bravery, many perish, and Edel is mysteriously attacked by one of the other competitors—forcing her to use her powers just to survive. Will her subterfuge cost her the crown, or is there a larger conspiracy at play?

    New York Times best-selling author Dhonielle Clayton returns to her sweeping, lush fantasy series with an all-new story teeming with high-stakes court intrigue and danger disguised by beauty.

  • On Air with Zoe Washington

    by Janae Marks

    $19.99

    Bestselling author Janae Marks returns with a bighearted and empowering sequel to the critically acclaimed From the Desk of Zoe Washington, following Zoe and her recently exonerated father as they build their new relationship and work to open their own restaurant together.

    You are listening to On Air with Zoe Washington . . .

    Two years ago, Zoe Washington helped clear Marcus’ name for a crime he didn’t commit. Now her birth father has finally been released from prison and to an outpouring of community support. So, everything should be perfect. Right?

    With Zoe and Marcus now co-workers at Ari’s Cakes, it’s true life has never been better. But when Marcus reveals his lifelong dream of opening his own restaurant, Zoe becomes determined to help him achieve it—with her as his pastry chef of course. She still has a lot of new desserts to invent! 

    However, starting a new place is much more difficult than it looks, and despite being innocent—Marcus is having a harder time re-entering society than anyone expected. Determined to find a solution, Zoe starts a podcast to bring light to the struggles exonerees experience and fundraise for their restaurant.

    Between hosting her show, testing recipes, managing shifting friend dynamics, and trying to make sure Marcus and her stepdad each have enough time with her—Zoe is stretched thin. She knows the power of using her voice. But with waning public interest in their story, will anyone still be listening? 

  • Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook

    by Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall

    $22.95

    *ships in 7 - 10 business days*

    A guidebook to the institutional transformation of design theory and practice by restoring the long-excluded cultures of Indigenous, Black, and People of Color communities.

    From the excesses of world expositions to myths of better living through technology, modernist design, in its European-based guises, has excluded and oppressed the very people whose lands and lives it reshaped. Decolonizing Design first asks how modernist design has encompassed and advanced the harmful project of colonization—then shows how design might address these harms by recentering its theory and practice in global Indigenous cultures and histories.

    A leading figure in the movement to decolonize design, Dori Tunstall uses hard-hitting real-life examples and case studies drawn from over fifteen years of working to transform institutions to better reflect the lived experiences of Indigenous, Black, and People of Color communities. Her book is at once enlightening, inspiring, and practical, interweaving her lived experiences with extensive research to show what decolonizing design means, how it heals, and how to practice it in our institutions today.

    For leaders and practitioners in design institutions and communities, Tunstall’s work demonstrates how we can transform the way we imagine and remake the world, replacing pain and repression with equity, inclusion, and diversity—in short, she shows us how to realize the infinite possibilities that decolonized design represents.

Stay Informed. We're building a community committed to celebrating Black authors + artisans. Subscribe to keep up with all things Kindred Stories.