Celebrate the release of While We're Here with Anne Wynter!

EVENT DEETS

When: Saturday, April 11 @ 12 PM

Where: Kindred Stories (2310 Elgin St #2, Houston, TX 77004)

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you're coming or RSVP WITH BOOK to secure your copy of While We're Here.

Please note outside copies of the book will not be allowed in the bookstore and you will not be eligible for the signing/photo line. You must buy a book from Kindred Stories. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anne Wynter is the author of numerous board books and picture books, including So Many Years, Everybody in the Red Brick Building, and Nell Plants a Tree, which won the Ezra Jack Keats Award and the Golden Kite Award and was selected as the 2023 Texas Great Read. Originally from Houston, Texas, Anne currently lives in Austin, Texas, with her family. To learn more or say hello, visit annewynter.com.  

America’s most popular sports media figure tells it like it is in this surprisingly personal book, not only dishing out his signature, uninhibited opinions but also revealing the challenges he overcame in childhood as well as at ESPN, and who he really is when the cameras are off.

Stephen A. Smith has never been handed anything, nor was he an overnight success. Growing up poor in Queens, the son of Caribbean immigrants and the youngest of six children, he was a sports-obsessed kid who faced a number of struggles, from undiagnosed dyslexia to getting enough cereal to fill his bowl. As a basketball player at Winston-Salem State University, he got a glimmer of his true calling when he wrote a newspaper column arguing for the retirement of his own Hall of Fame coach, Clarence Gaines.

Smith hustled and rose up from a high school reporter at Daily News (New York) to a general sports columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer in the 1990s, before getting his own show at ESPN in 2005. After he was unceremoniously fired from the network in 2009, he became even more determined to fight for success. He got himself rehired two years later and, with his razor-sharp intelligence and fearless debate style, found his role on the show he was destined to star in: First Take, the network’s flagship morning program.

In Straight Shooter, Smith writes about the greatest highs and deepest lows of his life and career. He gives his thoughts on Skip Bayless, Ray Rice, Colin Kaepernick, the New York Knicks, the Dallas Cowboys, and former President Donald Trump. But he also pulls back the curtain and talks about life beyond the set, sharing authentic stories about his negligent father, his loving mother, being a father himself, his battle with life-threatening COVID-19, and what he really thinks about politics and social issues. He does it all with the same intelligence, humor, and charm that has made him a household name.

Provocative, moving, and eye-opening, this book is the perfect gift for lovers of sports, television, and anyone who likes their stories delivered straight to the heart.

A twisty thriller about a woman who vanishes from a luxury hotel, and the detective who believes the case is tied to the unsolved disappearances of other Black women in the city.

Giovanni Mason worked hard to become the first Black head concierge at Chicago’s exclusive and glamorous Ivory Hotel. It’s a job that requires patience, perfection, and, above all, self-control. But when Giovanni reunites with her former best friend, makeup influencer Natalie Moore, things get heated as a mending of fences morphs into a public argument in the hotel restaurant, and Giovanni loses her cool. Hours later, Natalie is missing. Evidence piles against Giovanni—a ransacked, blood-spattered hotel room, fresh bruises on her body, and a troubling gap in her memory from the last twelve hours.

Detective Redding Stark is the only one unconvinced of Giovanni’s guilt. She sees disturbing parallels to a series of disappearances targeting Black women and believes Natalie’s case is part of something bigger. Together, she and Giovanni are pulled into a dangerous web of privilege, power, and betrayal inside—and far beyond—the walls of the Ivory Hotel.

Will Giovanni and Detective Stark find Natalie or join the missing?

Sports agent Jackie Miles is a petite powerhouse who has built her empire on killer instincts, designer stilettos, and tough skin. Her client roster is legendary, her temper is hotter than Georgia asphalt, and aside from her French bulldog PeeWee and her "boss chick village," she's perfectly content flying solo. Then Antonio Steele walks back into her life, and all hell breaks loose. The towering former football star turned rival agent has always known exactly which buttons to push. Just when Jackie thinks she can handle their explosive chemistry and complicated past, she mysteriously loses her voice. But this isn't ordinary laryngitis; a cryptic stranger's message implies that Jackie must "quiet her tongue and listen with her heart" to lift whatever spell she's under. With a career-defining client trip to Mexico looming, and only the devastatingly handsome Antonio as backup, Jackie must learn to let go-if only she could trust him to catch her. Struck Speechless is book two in the Boss Chicks Village Series, following the hit romcom Losing Sight.

An inclusive and empowering picture book that's all about celebrating being yourself from Instagram influencer Amina Mucciolo!

"We all have a rainbow inside, and it’s made up of all the special little things that make each of us unique." So begins Amina Mucciolo's semiautobiographical picture book about accepting and celebrating all the things that make each and every one of us special!

Amina's story reminds young readers how important it is to embrace your differences and be proud of who you are. Amina's message is incredibly powerful: We are all beautiful just as we are.

This empowering picture book features colorful illustrations with a cast of kids with all kinds of experiences, backgrounds, and abilities. Its message of kindness, inclusivity, and self-celebration will resonate with kids and parents everywhere.

From Newbery Medal honoree and #1 New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds comes a hilarious, hopeful, and action-packed middle-grade novel about the greatest young superhero you’ve never heard of, filled with illustrations by Raúl the Third!

Portico Reeves’s superpower is making sure all the other superheroes—like his parents and two best friends—stay super. And safe. Super safe. And he does this all in secret. No one in his civilian life knows he’s actually…Stuntboy!

But his regular Portico identity is pretty cool, too. He lives in the biggest house on the block, maybe in the whole city, which basically makes it a castle. His mom calls where they live an apartment building. But a building with fifty doors just in the hallways is definitely a castle. And behind those fifty doors live a bunch of different people who Stuntboy saves all the time. In fact, he’s the only reason the cat, New Name Every Day, has nine lives.

All this is swell except for Portico’s other secret, his not-so-super secret. His parents are fighting all the time. They’re trying to hide it by repeatedly telling Portico to go check on a neighbor “in the meantime.” But Portico knows “meantime” means his parents are heading into the Mean Time which means they’re about to get into it, and well, Portico’s superhero responsibility is to save them, too—as soon as he figures out how.

Only, all these secrets give Portico the worry wiggles, the frets, which his mom calls anxiety. Plus, like all superheroes, Portico has an arch-nemesis who is determined to prove that there is nothing super about Portico at all.

Portico Reeves’s superpower is making sure all the other superheroes—like his parents and two best friends—stay super. And safe. Super safe. And he does this all in secret. No one in his civilian life knows he’s actually…Stuntboy! But his regular Portico identity is pretty cool, too. He lives in the biggest house on the block, maybe in the whole city, which basically makes it a castle. His mom calls where they live an apartment building. But a building with fifty doors just in the hallways is definitely a castle. And behind those fifty doors live a bunch of different people who Stuntboy saves all the time. In fact, he’s the only reason the cat, New Name Every Day, has nine lives. All this is swell except for Portico’s other secret, his not-so-super secret. His parents are fighting all the time. They’re trying to hide it by repeatedly telling Portico to go check on a neighbor “in the meantime.” But Portico knows “meantime” means his parents are heading into the Mean Time which means they’re about to get into it, and well, Portico’s superhero responsibility is to save them, too—as soon as he figures out how. Only, all these secrets give Portico the worry wiggles, the frets, which his mom calls anxiety. Plus, like all superheroes, Portico has an arch-nemesis who is determined to prove that there is nothing super about Portico at all.

From Newbery Medal honoree and #1 New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds comes the sequel to the hilarious, hopeful, and action-packed middle grade novel Stuntboy, in the Meantime about the greatest young superhero you’ve never heard of, jam packed with illustrations by Raúl the Third!

Portico Reeves is the greatest superhero a lot of people have never heard of. He likes it that way—then no one can get in the way of him from keeping other other people safe. Super safe. He’s Stuntboy. He’s got the moves. And the saves. Except. There’s been one major fail.

He couldn’t save his parents from becoming Xs. Which is a word that sounds like coughing up a hairball. But don’t talk to him about the divorce, because of the hairball thing, and also, it gives Portico the frets.

What’s also giving him frets is his parents living on two separate floors in their apartment building. He’s never fully with one parent or the other. He’s in-between, all the time. The in-between time. And the elevator is busted, so to get between floors means getting past the bullies who hang in the stairwells.

So when Portico and new friend, Herbert, and best best friend, Zola, discover an empty apartment, unlocked, they are psyched. It’s a perfect hideout, and hangout, and it’s not half anyone’s…it’s all theirs. So they decide to make it their own…let’s say with stunts of the drawing kind. Problem is, that gives some Grown Up People the frets, which leads to double frets for Portico. And he’s not sure his arsenal of stunts can combat that.

*ships in 7-10 business days

A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.

Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.

But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix's desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other.

With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone "family," and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a searing debut for our times.

*Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

Such Color collects the best poems from Smith’s award-winning books and culminates in thirty pages of brilliant, excoriating new poems. These new works confront America’s historical and contemporary racism and injustices, while they also rise toward the registers of the ecstatic, the rapturous, and the sacred—urging us toward love as a resistance to everything that impedes it. This magnificent retrospective affirms Smith’s place as one of the twenty-first century’s most treasured poets.

Evie Shockley's new poems invite us to dream―and work―toward a more capacious "we"

In her new poetry collection, Evie Shockley mobilizes visual art, sound, and multilayered language to chart routes towards openings for the collective dreaming of a more capacious "we." How do we navigate between the urgency of our own becoming and the imperative insight that whoever we are, we are in relation to each other? Beginning with the visionary art of Black women like Alison Saar and Alma Thomas, Shockley's poems draw and forge a widening constellation of connections that help make visible the interdependence of everyone and everything on Earth.

perched

i am black, comely,
a girl on the cusp of desire.
my dangling toes take the rest
the rest of my body refuses. spine upright,
my pose proposes anticipation. i poise
in copper-colored tension, intent on
manifesting my soul in the discouraging world.

under the rough eyes of others, i stiffen.

if i must be hard, it will be as a tree, alive
with change. inside me, a love of beauty rises
like sap, sprouts from my scalp
and stretches forth. i send out my song, an aria
blue and feathered, and grow toward it,
choirs bare, but soon to bud. i am
black and becoming.

        ―after Alison Saar's Blue Bird

A novel by a critically acclaimed voice in contemporary fiction, praised by Ebony for its “unforgettable images, unique characters, and moving story that keeps the pages turning until the end.”

A young prostitute comes to Bigelow, Arkansas, to start over, far from her haunting past. Sugar moves next door to Pearl, who is still grieving for the daughter who was murdered fifteen years before. Over sweet-potato pie, an unlikely friendship begins, transforming both women's lives—and the life of an entire town.

Sugar brings a Southern African-American town vividly to life, with its flowering magnolia trees, lingering scents of jasmine and honeysuckle, and white picket fences that keep strangers out—but ignorance and superstition in. To read this novel is to take a journey through loss and suffering to a place of forgiveness, understanding, and grace.

*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.

From a dazzling new voice, a bold, intoxicating novel that shows "the grit alongside the glamor" (Vogue) of high-paid sex work in the age of the internet.

Sugar, Baby follows Agnes, a mixed-race 21-year-old whose life seems to be heading nowhere. Still living at home, she works as a cleaner and spends all her money in clubs on the weekends searching for distractions from her mundane life. That is until she meets Emily, daughter of one of her cleaning clients, who lives in London and works as a model . . . and a sugar baby, dating rich older men for money.

Emily's life is the escape Agnes has been longing for-extravagant tasting menus, champagne on tap, glamorous hotels with unlimited room service, designer gifts from dates who call her beautiful. But this new lifestyle is the last straw for her religious mother Constance.

Kicked out of her family home, Agnes moves in with Emily and the other sugar babies in their fancy London flat and is drawn deeper and deeper into their world. But these women come from money: they possess a safety net Agnes does not. And as she is thrown from one precarious relationship to the next-a married man who wants to show off the glamourous, exotic girl on his arm; a Russian billionaire's wife who makes Agnes central to a sex party in Miami-she finds herself searching for fulfillment just as desperately as she was before.

A compelling journey of self-discovery that offers sharp commentary on race, beauty, and class, Sugar, Baby is an electric, original, spellbinding novel that will keep readers turning the pages until the very end.

This rich and moving novel traces the lives of two black heroines from their close-knit childhood in a small Ohio town, through their sharply divergent paths of womanhood, to their ultimate confrontation and reconciliation.

Nel Wright has chosen to stay in the place where she was born, to marry, raise a family, and become a pillar of the black community. Sula Peace has rejected the life Nel has embraced, escaping to college, and submerging herself in city life. When she returns to her roots, it is as a rebel and a wanton seductress. Eventually, both women must face the consequences of their choices. Together, they create an unforgettable portrait of what it means and costs to be a black woman in America.

Una obra maestra de la ganadora del Premio Nobel de Literatura 1993.

Esta es la historia de Sula y Nel, dos niñas que crecen juntas en un barrio de negros, compartiendo sus sueños e ilusiones. Ambas son precoces y curiosas, hijas de familias pobres. Pero el tiempo pasa y, cuando Nel se casa, Sula se marcha del suburbio para ir a la universidad y viajar por el país. Diez años después, Sula regresa e involuntariamente destruye la familia y la felicidad de Nel. A partir de entonces, los pintorescos habitantes del suburbio la consideran una bruja malvada...

Ambientada en los EE.UU. en el período de entreguerras, Sula es un portentoso retrato del poder de lo femenino en una comunidad pobre y rural de negros, donde las mujeres reinan como madres, hechiceras y depositarias de la tradición oral.

Reseña:
«Un aullido de amor y rabia, travieso y divertido, duro y amargo.»
The New York Times

*Ships in 7-10 business day*

Sulwe has skin the color of midnight. She is darker than everyone in her family. She is darker than anyone in her school. Sulwe just wants to be beautiful and bright, like her mother and sister. Then a magical journey in the night sky opens her eyes and changes everything.

An incisive, culturally observant analysis of the evolving mores, manners and taboos of social justice (“anti-racist”) orthodoxy, which has profoundly influenced how we think about diversity and freedom of expression, often with complex or paradoxical consequences.

In this provocative book, Thomas Chatterton Williams, one of the most revered and reviled social commentators of our time, paints a clear and detailed picture of the ideas and events that have paved the way for the dramatic paradigm shift in social justice that has taken place over the past few years. Taking aim at the ideology of critical race theory, the rise of an oppressive social media, the fall from Obama to Trump, and the twinned crises of COVID-19 and the murder of George Floyd, Williams documents the extent to which this transition has altered media, artistic creativity, education, employment, policing, and, most profoundly, the ambient language and culture we use to make sense of our lives.

Williams also decries how liberalism—the very foundation of an open and vibrant society—is in existential crisis, under assault from both the right and the left, especially in our predominantly networked, Internet-driven monoculture.

Sure to be highly controversial, Summer of Our Discontent is a compelling look at our place in a radically changing world.

Saylor Ford and Heaven Goo-Campbell could not be more different. Saylor is bubbly, popular, athletic, and always coupled up. Meanwhile, Heaven is grumpy and artistic, prefers her skateboard to people, and is perpetually single. So obviously, sparks fly when they must spend the entire summer together.

When Saylor, distracted by her mom’s viral video about Saylor’s coming out, breaks her arm at basketball camp, she becomes determined not to spend the summer stuck at home with the social media star. Her best escape is the girl she’s pretty sure can’t stand her but whom she finds absolutely irresistible, Heaven. Thankfully, Heaven is willing to let Saylor in on her summer plans, but for a price. Saylor has to help Heaven establish her social media presence, showcasing her art for her future career as a tattoo artist.

They didn’t anticipate the intimacy of spending each day together and the deepening feelings that followed. And their bingo scavenger hunt is now less a shared project and more a skate ramp to romance. But do the girls have a future together if Saylor is wary of bringing a relationship out into the open—too afraid that her mom’s influencer status will attract more attention than Saylor and timid Heaven can handle?

*Ships/ready for pick-up in 7-10 business days*

Emmy Award winner, renowned lawyer and journalist, and The View cohost Sunny Hostin makes her literary debut with this dazzling novel about a life-changing summer along the beaches of Martha's Vineyard.

Welcome to Oak Bluffs, the most exclusive black beach community in the country. Known for its gingerbread Victorian-style houses and modern architectural marvels, this picturesque town hugging the sea is a mecca for the crème de la crème of black society—where Michelle and Barack Obama vacation and Meghan Markle has shopped for a house for her mom. Black people have lived in this pretty slip of the Vineyard since the 1600s and began buying property in the 1800s, making this posh town the embodiment of “old money.”

Every summer, Esperenza “Perry” Soto, a beautiful and talented Afro-Latina lawyer, escapes the fetid heat of New York City for the gorgeous weather, cool water, and stunning views Oak Bluffs offers. Sharing a cottage on the beach, owned by her “Ama”, with her husband and two god sisters, Perry is looking forward to trading meetings and clients for days of languor and fun.

When Memorial Day arrives and the season begins, some of the nation’s wealthiest, most powerful, and famous from the worlds of politics, art, and entertainment meet to swim, dance, party, and chill. While a few can’t leave work behind, others indulge in a different kind of business affair.

But this summer on the Bluffs is different. Ama is moving to the south of France to reunite with her college sweetheart. She is going to give the house to one of her goddaughters and she has invited all three of them to spend the summer with her the way they did when they were kids. Each of the women want the house desperately. Each is grappling with a secret that they fear will make them lose Ama’s approval and the house. . . .

One summer bound them. One secret divided them. One reunion could change everything.

As teenagers, Summer Knight and Echo Abara spent one unforgettable summer as camp counselors. Beneath sun-soaked days and starry nights, their bond deepened from easy friendship into something more—an unspoken love neither dared confess. Life pulled them in different directions, yet their souls remained tethered by time, distance, and a shared secret.

Neither has forgotten their connection—nor the secret they swore to keep. When a reunion brings them back together, their lives collide once more, stirring long-buried emotions and unanswered questions. Summer and Echo must confront not only their unvoiced feelings but also the burden of their shared secret—one that could shatter everything they believed about their friendship and the summer that shaped them.

Will they find the courage to embrace what's always been between them? Or will the truth they've guarded destroy their second chance?

*ships in 7-10 business days*

B’onca always knew how to get by. And then her daughter is born. She wouldn’t trade Mia for anything, but there is never enough cash to go around. When their gentrifying Memphis neighborhood results in higher prices and then an eviction notice, B’onca’s already fragile world spirals. Desperate to make things right, B’onca forges a risky plan to help pay the bills. But one wrong move could cost B’onca—and her family—everything.

From the celebrated author of Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman comes a compelling story about a teen mom navigating income disparity and racial inequality, and defying challenges to protect those she loves.

Part history, part legend, this is the story of Sundiata Keita: the heroic figure who founded the empire of Mali. A thirteenth-century oral epic, Sundiata sees the full-length tale captured in print for the first time.

This is Sundiata, the epic tale of a man 'great among kings' who, through his legendary deeds and exploits, came to father an empire. For over 800 years, this story has been passed down to generations of listeners through spoken word.

D.T. Niane's novelisation captures all the mystery and majesty of medieval African kingship. This ambitious story ranks alongside the Ancient Greek and Roman classics as one of the world's great adventure stories.

No, you can't touch it. Run through this field of sunflowers and experience the notes of juicy mandarin, fresh bergamot, and warm amber. A candle fit for royalty.

Top Note: Mandarin
Middle Note: Bergamot
Bottom Note: Amber

Whether infused by movement or stillness, Mlengeya's black-and-white portrait paintings radiate both power and peace

Born in 1991 in Dar es Salaam, Sungi Mlengeya captures the essence of Black womanhood in her haunting monochromatic acrylic portraits. The meticulously painted figures are set against a minimalist white background, creating a striking contrast that emphasizes skin texture and form. Her portraits, whether infused by movement or stillness, radiate both power and peace, offering the viewer intimate moments of strength and serenity. In this first monograph dedicated to Mlengeya, the curator Tandazani Dhlakama brilliantly analyzes how African, Black and feminist conditions are intertwined in her work, and the intimate conversation between Sungi and her model, Jemima Michael, takes us behind the scenes of a work in the making.

Sunny tries to shine despite his troubled past in this third novel in the critically acclaimed Track series from National Book Award finalist Jason Reynolds.

Ghost. Patina. Sunny. Lu. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds, with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team—a team that could take them to the state championships. They all have a lot to lose, but they all have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves. Sunny is the main character in this novel, the third of four books in Jason Reynold’s electrifying middle grade series.

Sunny is just that—sunny. Always ready with a goofy smile and something nice to say, Sunny is the chillest dude on the Defenders team. But his life hasn’t always been sun beamy-bright. You see, Sunny is a murderer. Or at least he thinks of himself that way. His mother died giving birth to him, and based on how Sunny’s dad treats him—ignoring him, making Sunny call him Darryl, never “Dad”—it’s no wonder Sunny thinks he’s to blame. It seems the only thing Sunny can do right in his dad’s eyes is win first place ribbons running the mile, just like his mom did. But Sunny doesn’t like running, never has. So he stops. Right in the middle of a race.

With his relationship with his dad now worse than ever, the last thing Sunny wants to do is leave the other newbies—his only friends—behind. But you can’t be on a track team and not run. So Coach asks Sunny what he wants to do. Sunny’s answer? Dance. Yes, dance. But you also can’t be on a track team and dance. Then, in a stroke of genius only Jason Reynolds can conceive, Sunny discovers a track event that encompasses the hard beats of hip-hop, the precision of ballet, and the showmanship of dance as a whole: the discus throw. But as he practices for this new event, can he let go of everything that’s been eating him up inside?

Naomi
I can't understand why – out of the four hockey players I'm sharing a house with this semester – Finn Howard's the one who catches my eye.

The guy never smiles. He doesn't say much and disapproves plenty.

But, something about him feels familiar. Something about him feels safe.

I'm not falling for Finn, I'm just curious. Could I make him smile? It wouldn't hurt to try. I love a good challenge. And who knows, maybe it'll distract me from pining over a guy I meet online.

Finn
I don't get nervous unless I'm on the ice. So why does my chest feel tight whenever Naomi Lewis looks in my direction?

She's witty, kind, and happy. How is someone that happy all the time?

If her sunny disposition isn't enough to distract me, the fact that her voice sounds exactly like the streamer I anonymously moderate for will.

If Naomi is her, she's in for a huge disappointment. I'm not the guy she thinks I am...not anymore, at least. And for that reason alone, I should stay away from her. I should stop trying to get closer. I should stop wanting her because she fell for someone else. Someone I will never be again.

__

Sunny Disposition is a slow burn, hidden identity romance featuring a grumpy, amnesic hockey player and sunshine cozy game streamer.