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

World Fantasy Award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor weaves together a story of magic, mystery, and finding one’s place in the world—for fans of Ursula Le Guin and Diana Wynne Jones.

Twelve-year-old Sunny lives in Nigeria, but she was born American. Her features are African, but she’s albino. She’s a terrific athlete, but can’t go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits. And then she discovers something amazing-she is a “free agent,” with latent magical power. Soon she’s part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But will it be enough to help them when they are asked to catch a career criminal who knows magic too?

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

From the moment Sunny Nwazue discovered she had mystical energy flowing in her blood, she sought to understand and control her powers. Throughout her adventures in Akata Witch and Akata Warrior, she had to navigate the balance between nearly everything in her life—America and Nigeria, the “normal” world and the one infused with juju, human and spirit, good daughter and powerful Leopard Person.

Now, those hard lessons and abilities are put to the test in a quest so dangerous and fantastical, it would be madness to go…but may destroy the world if she does not. With the help of her friends, Sunny embarks on a mission to find a precious object hidden deep in an otherworldly realm. Defeating the guardians of the prize will take more from Sunny than she has to give, and triumph will mean she will be forever changed.

Series Overview: Book 3 in the Akata series

Book 1: Akata Witch

Book 2: Akata Warrior

A dazzling memoir of an African childhood from Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian novelist, playwright, and poet Wole Soyinka.

Aké: The Years of Childhood gives us the story of Soyinka's boyhood before and during World War II in a Yoruba village in western Nigeria called Aké. A relentlessly curious child who loved books and getting into trouble, Soyinka grew up on a parsonage compound, raised by Christian parents and by a grandfather who introduced him to Yoruba spiritual traditions. His vivid evocation of the colorful sights, sounds, and aromas of the world that shaped him is both lyrically beautiful and laced with humor and the sheer delight of a child's-eye view. A classic of African autobiography, Aké is also a transcendantly timeless portrait of the mysteries of childhood.

Young readers will learn the basics of beekeeping with this vibrantly illustrated book that takes place on the Sankofa Farms apiary.

Told from Akeem's perspective, Akeem Keeps Bees! begins with the arrival and installation of a package of bees and follows Akeem and his Dad throughout the year as they inspect the hive, find the queen, deal with a swarm, harvest honey, and prepare for winter. 

Every part of the process is illustrated for young readers, teaching them the special role that bees play on a farm. The author, Kamal Bell, is a leading voice among Black farmers educating and inspiring Black youth about farming and beekeeping. Perfect for children ages 6 through 10.

Welcome to the summer of the apocalypse. One 12-year-old boy leads the charge against the forces of evil as he tries to stop the Four Horsemen from taking over the world in the start to a wildly funny and addictive fantasy series about accepting yourself and finding your inner hero.

Alex Wise feels like his world is ending. His best friend, Loren, is leaving town for the summer, his former friend and maybe sort of crush Sky hasn't spoken to him since he ditched Alex on first day of sixth grade, and now his mom is sending him and his annoying younger sister, Mags, on a cruise with the dad who abandoned them. And, as if things couldn't get worse, a creepy shadow monster may or may not be stalking him.

But none of this could prepare Alex for the actual end of the world. Too bad that is exactly what's coming, after the definitely-real Shadow Man kidnaps Mags and she is possessed by the ancient spirit of Death—one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Luckily (depending on who you ask), Alex is possessed as well by a powerful god who imbues Alex with their powers in an effort to stop the Horsemen…if he can figure out how to use them. So begins an epic battle between good and evil: Alex, Loren, a grumpy demi-god, and Alex's fourth grade teacher vs. Death, Pestilence, Famine, War, and the waves of chaos and destruction they bring to LA and soon the rest of the globe. Just your average summer vacation.

Alex is more used to being left behind than leading the way, but now he's the only one who can save his sister—and the world. That is, if he can unlock his new powers and see himself as the hero he is.

“Never has the apocalypse been so fun!"
—Mark Oshiro, author of THE INSIDERS and co-author with Rick Riordan of THE SUN AND THE STAR: A NICO DI ANGELO ADVENTURE.

A Puerto Rican trans epic that blends poetic play and speculative fiction, by a Lambda Literary Award winner

Algarabía follows Cenex, a trans being who narrates his life while navigating the stories told on his behalf. An inhabitant of a colony of Earth in a parallel universe, Cenex leads us through his years as an experimental subject, a stay in suburbia, and not-so-far-off lands as he struggles to find a name, a body, and a stable home. His song clashes variegated sources with work by cis writers on trans figures, referencing everything from Clueless to Taino cosmology within a single line.

Algarabía inscribes an origin narrative for trans people in the face of their erasure from colonial and anti-colonial literary canons, laughing at its own survival with sharp, unserious rage.

Una epopeya puertorriqueña trans que mezcla poesía y narrativa especulativa, por un ganador del Premio Lambda

Algarabía sigue a Cenex, un ser trans que narra su vida retrospectivamente mientras navega por las historias contadas en su nombre. Habitante de una colonia de la Tierra en un universo paralelo, Cenex nos conduce a través de sus años como sujeto experimental, una estancia suburbana, unas tierras no tan lejanas y su lucha por encontrar un cuerpo y un hogar estables. Su canto enfrenta textos de escritores cis sobre figuras trans con una variedad de fuentes, haciendo referencia a Clueless y a la cosmología taína dentro de un mismo verso.

Algarabía inscribe un mito fundacional para las personas trans frente a su exclusión de los cánones literarios coloniales y anticoloniales y se ríe de su propia supervivencia con una rabia pícara y aguda.

The stunning new picture book by presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman and Caldecott Honor-winning illustrator Christian Robinson—available in Spanish

Te dicen que esto
no va a funcionar.
¿Pero cómo lo sabrás
si nunca lo intentas?

Amanda Gorman, poeta inaugural presidencial y autora #1 superventas del New York Times, y Christian Robinson, ganador de los premios Caldecott Honor y Coretta Scott King Honor, han creado un mensaje de esperanza eterna.

A veces el mundo se siente roto. Y los problemas parecen demasiado grandes para solucionarlos. Pero de alguna forma, tenemos el poder de cambiar las cosas. Con un poco de fe, y con la ayuda de un amigo, juntos podemos encontrar la belleza y crear un cambio.

Con un texto íntimo e inspirador, e ilustraciones poderosamente impresionantes, Algo, algún día nos enseña que hasta los gestos más pequeños pueden tener un gran impacto.

Rashid Johnson, Cauleen Smith and others pay tribute to a truly extraordinary figure in 20th-century American jazz

This volume unpacks the cultural legacy of musician, spiritual leader, wife and mother Alice Coltrane. Accompanying the eponymous exhibition at Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum, the book takes its title from Coltrane’s 1977 autobiography and devotional text, Monument Eternal, in which she reflected on her newfound spiritual beliefs and the path to healing and self-discovery. Coltrane was "ahead of her time," as her son, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, says: she was "one of the first people to move outside the mainstream, and certainly one of the first female, Black, American jazz musicians to record her own music in her own studio, and to release music on her own terms."
Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal explores themes including spiritual transcendence, sonic innovation and architectural intimacy. The project juxtaposes works from 19 contemporary American artists with pieces of ephemera from Coltrane’s archive―including handwritten sheet music, unreleased audio recordings and rarely seen footage―to honor her cultural output and practice.
Alice Coltrane was born in Detroit in 1937 and took up music at an early age, beginning piano lessons at seven years old. In 1967 her husband, saxophonist John Coltrane, gifted her a harp, on which she went on to record seminal albums including Journey in Satchidananda and A Monastic Trio, making her one of the very few harpists in the history of jazz. Coltrane moved to Southern California in 1972 and founded the Sai Anantam ashram. She lived and worked in Los Angeles, where she died in 2007 at age 69.

This book was published in conjunction with Hammer Museum

Do aliens exist? Are UFOs real? The race is on to discover alien life in the universe!

This book will sort myth from fact to bring you the real science behind the search for alien lifeforms. Space expert Joalda Morancy will take readers on a tour of the solar system (and beyond), onboard new NASA missions searching for the most likely alien hiding places—from icy moons of Jupiter to the clouds of Venus. Along the way kids will find out about:

• The robots sent to Mars to look for Martians
• What really goes on at Area 51
• Ways to spot an advanced alien civilization (hint—look for dim stars)

They may seem as fanciful as wizards and monsters, but this book will show that scientists not only believe that aliens exist—but that it’s only a matter of time before we find them.

Pierced by grief and charged with history, this new poetry collection from the award-winning author of Prelude to Bruise and How We Fight for Our Lives confronts our everyday apocalypses.

In haunted poems glinting with laughter, Saeed Jones explores the public and private betrayals of life as we know it. With verve, wit, and elegant craft, Jones strips away American artifice in order to reveal the intimate grief of a mourning son and the collective grief bearing down on all of us.

Drawing from memoir, fiction, and persona, Jones confronts the everyday perils of white supremacy with a finely tuned poetic ear, identifying moments that seem routine even as they open chasms of hurt. Viewing himself as an unreliable narrator, Jones looks outward to understand what’s within, bringing forth cultural icons like Little Richard, Paul Mooney, Aretha Franklin and Diahann Carroll to illuminate how long and how perilously we’ve been living on top of fault lines. As these poems seek ways to love and survive through America’s existential threats, Jones ushers his readers toward the realization that the end of the world is already here—and the apocalypse is a state of being.

Join us as we continue discussing bell hooks' All About Love. This was our book club pick in June but the group truly believed that they needed more time with this text. 

This discussion will take place September 13, 2022 at 7:00 PM in the Kindred Stories' Reading Garden. RSVP Required. See ya'll there!

About the Book

With the warmth and intimacy of M. Scott Peck and in the intellectual tradition of Eric Fromm, bell hooks’ most popular and accessible work ever in which she shows us how to cultivate a love ethic that will heal us as individuals and as a nation

“The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet...we would all love better if we used it as a verb,” writes bell hooks as she comes out fighting and on fire in All About Love. Here, at her most provocative and intensely personal, the renowned scholar, cultural critic, and feminist skewers our view of love as romance. In its place she offers a proactive new ethic for a people and a society bereft with lovelessness.

As bell hooks uses her incisive mind and razor-sharp pen to explore the question “What is love?” her answers strike at both the mind and heart. In thirteen concise chapters, hooks examines her own search for emotional connection and society’s failure to provide a model for learning to love. Razing the cultural paradigm that the ideal love is infused with sex and desire, she provides a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for the individuals and for a nation. The Utne Reader declared bell hooks one of the “100 Visionaries Who Can Change Your Life.” All About Love is a powerful affirmation of just how profoundly she can.

As bell hooks uses her incisive mind and razor-sharp pen to explore the question “What is love?” her answers strike at both the mind and heart.

In thirteen concise chapters, hooks examines her own search for emotional connection and society’s failure to provide a model for learning to love. Razing the cultural paradigm that the ideal love is infused with sex and desire, she provides a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for the individuals and for a nation. The Utne Reader declared bell hooks one of the “100 Visionaries Who Can Change Your Life.” All About Love is a powerful affirmation of just how profoundly she can.

Head, shoulders, knees, and . . . penises! Young children are curious about all body parts. With bright illustrations, readable language, and a matter-of-fact tone, this guide offers readers the information they need to understand how bodies work. All About Penises is a book that embraces body diversity, reassures kids, and provides caregivers easy ways to answer the common questions that children have. Additional guidance for parents and caregivers includes more information on being an askable parent and how to talk to young children about sensitive topics.

Head, shoulders, knees, and . . . vulvas and vaginas! Young children are curious about all body parts. With bright illustrations, readable language, and a matter-of-fact tone, this guide offers readers the information they need to understand how bodies work. All About Vulvas and Vaginas is a book that embraces body diversity, reassures kids, and provides caregivers easy ways to answer the common questions that children have. Additional guidance for parents and caregivers includes more information on being an askable parent and how to talk to young children about sensitive topics.

*Ships in 7-10 business days*

Everyone has something to hide...

Ellice Littlejohn seemingly has it all: an Ivy League law degree, a well-paying job as a corporate attorney in midtown Atlanta, great friends, and a “for fun” relationship with a rich, charming executive, who just happens to be her white boss. But everything changes one cold January morning when Ellice arrives in the executive suite and finds him dead with a gunshot to his head.

And then she walks away like nothing has happened. Why? Ellice has been keeping a cache of dark secrets, including a small-town past and a kid brother who’s spent time on the other side of the law. She can’t be thrust into the spotlight—again.

But instead of grieving this tragedy, people are gossiping, the police are getting suspicious, and Ellice, the company’s lone black attorney, is promoted to replace her boss. While the opportunity is a dream-come-true, Ellice just can’t shake the feeling that something is off.

When she uncovers shady dealings inside the company, Ellice is trapped in an impossible ethical and moral dilemma. Suddenly, Ellice’s past and present lives collide as she launches into a pulse-pounding race to protect the brother she tried to save years ago and stop a conspiracy far more sinister than she could have ever imagined…

Black love. A love built on something true. A love so pure. A God sent love, is what Kaivon Lewis and Harlee Rivers found within one another.

Something worth fighting for. After two extremely beautiful years, the duo’s past starts to interlock with their future. Greed and bitterness from both sides, forces the hand of someone close. The domino effect it causes is one that neither, Kaivon nor Harlee, can shy away from.

Kaivon Lewis is the definition of making something out of nothing. As the highest paid defensive back in the NFL, he was given the opportunity to create a better life and leave all he knew in his growing years. The streets. They are a way of life for some, but now an option for Kaivon. It was once how he survived and protected. It is still his to manage. His secret attachment is not one he can easily cut ties with. His natural instinct is to protect and provide. When duty calls, he answers, especially when the ones he love are a factor. Whatever Kaivon loves, he is All In for.

Harlee Rivers is a successful nail artist, dominating in an industry that was never created for women that resemble her. Harlee is the backbone for everyone else around her, except herself. When tragedy struck, claiming the life of her Granny, her battle with anxiety doubled. Harlee quickly learns that what fills, spills. The battle to regain self-love and overcome anxiety is a struggle but fortunately, she’s both a lover and fighter. Harlee is All In and determined to conquer whatever comes her and her family’s way.

The duo can only pray that love is enough. The struggle to disconnect from what is familiar, could be the same thing that destroys everything. Three things are the determining factors. All three can give them the highest of highs and lowest of lows. When combined, one or all three could lead to a tragic demise. Can Kaivon and Harlee juggle them all? Will the Big Three be the very thing to take them down?

Love. The Streets. Football.

'This is devastatingly good' Heat

From the bestselling author of The Ice Cream Girls comes a gripping emotional thriller of love and obsession and the nature of coercive control. 'The author plays a blinder' says the Sun.

Verity is telling lies...
And that's why she's about to be arrested for attempted murder.

Serena has been lying for years. . .
And that may have driven her daughter, Verity, to do something unthinkable...

Poppy's lies have come back to haunt her . . .
So will her quest for the truth hurt everyone she loves?

Everyone lies.
But whose lies are going to end in tragedy?

Praise for Dorothy Koomson:

'If you only do one thing this weekend, read this book. . . utterly brilliant' Sun

'Immediately gripping and relentlessly intense' Heat

'An instantly involving pschological thriller' Telegraph

'Koomson just gets better and better' Woman & Home

National Book Award WINNER
Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature WINNER
An INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
An INSTANT INDIE BESTSELLER!

"All My Rage is a love story, a tragedy and an infectious teenage fever dream about what home means when you feel you don't fit in." -- New York Times Book Review

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Sabaa Tahir comes a brilliant, unforgettable, and heart-wrenching contemporary novel about family and forgiveness, love and loss, in a sweeping story that crosses generations and continents.

Lahore, Pakistan. Then.
Misbah is a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young life is shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Clouds' Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start.

Juniper, California. Now.
Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one else does. Until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding.

Now, Sal scrambles to run the family motel as his mother Misbah's health fails and his grieving father loses himself to alcoholism. Noor, meanwhile, walks a harrowing tightrope: working at her wrathful uncle's liquor store while hiding the fact that she's applying to college so she can escape him--and Juniper--forever.

When Sal's attempts to save the motel spiral out of control, he and Noor must ask themselves what friendship is worth--and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst.

From one of today's most cherished and bestselling young adult authors comes a breathtaking novel of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness--one that's both tragic and poignant in its tender ferocity.

Based on the research that race, gender, disability, and other important topics should be discussed with toddlers on up, this read-aloud series offers adults the opportunity to begin important conversations with young children in an informed, safe, and supported way.

Developed by experts in the fields of early childhood and activism, this topic-driven picture book offers clear, concrete language and compelling imagery to introduce the concept of disability. This book celebrates all bodies and abilities, just as they are, and addresses the inequities and opportunities for change in today's world.

While young children are avid observers and questioners of their world, adults often shut down or postpone conversations on complicated topics because it's hard to know where to begin. Research shows that talking about tough issues from the age of two not only helps children understand what they see, but also increases self-awareness, self-esteem, and allows them to recognize and confront things that are unfair, like discrimination and prejudice.

These books offer a supportive approach that considers both the child and the adult. Stunning art accompanies the simple and interactive text, and the back matter offers additional resources and ideas for extending this discussion.

A vital history of organizing within and beyond the walls of women’s prisons in the 1970s, illuminating a crucial chapter in today’s abolition feminist struggles.

This new edition of an award-winning book features a foreword from acclaimed scholar-activist Sarah Haley and an afterword by Thuma.

During the 1970s, grassroots women activists in and outside of prisons forged a radical politics against gender violence and incarceration. Scholar-activist Emily L. Thuma traces the making of this anticarceral feminism at the intersections of struggles for racial and economic justice, imprisoned and institutionalized people’s rights, and gender and sexual liberation.

All Our Trials chronicles the organizing, ideas, and influence of those who placed criminalized and marginalized women at the heart of their antiviolence mobilizations. This activism confronted a "tough on crime" political agenda and clashed with the mainstream women’s movement’s strategy of resorting to the criminal legal system as a solution to sexual and domestic violence.

Drawing on extensive archival research and first-person narratives, Thuma weaves together the stories of mass defense campaigns, prisoner uprisings, coalition organizing, and radical print cultures that cut through prison walls. In the process, All Our Trials reveals a vibrant culture of opposition to interpersonal and state violence that both transforms our understanding of 1970s social movements and illuminates the history of present struggles for transformative justice.

*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.

A Harlem Detectives Novel

In this gripping installment of the maverick Harlem Detectives series, Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones investigate a series of seemingly unrelated, brutal crimes. A gold Cadillac, about as large as an ocean liner, rocks a woman to the pavement in the cold streets of Harlem. Three goons in cop uniforms heist a small fortune and leave an important politician dead. All told eight bodies stack up over the long, bloody weekend, but they won't spoil in this weather. And Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson have to follow the trail of brutal violence, perversion, and cold murder—and avoid getting caught in the fray.

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

A renowned historian traces the life of a single object handed down through three generations of Black women to craft an extraordinary testament to people who are left out of the archives.

“Who would black women get to be if we did not have to create from a place of resistance?”

Hip Hop Womanist writer and theologian EbonyJanice’s book of essays center a fourth wave of Womanism, dreaming, the pursuit of softness, ancestral reverence, and radical wholeness as tools of liberation. 

All The Black Girls Are Activists is a love letter to Black girls and Black women, asking and attempting to offer some answers to “Who would black women get to be if we did not have to create from a place of resistance?” by naming Black women’s wellness, wholeness, and survival as the radical revolution we have been waiting for.

About the Author: EbonyJanice is a dynamic lecturer, transformational speaker, passionate multi-faith preacher, and creative focused on Decolonizing Authority, Hip Hop Scholarship, Womanism as a Political and Spiritual/Religious tool for Liberation, Blackness as Religion, Dialogue as central to professional development and personal growth, and Women and Gender Studies focused on black girlhood.

EbonyJanice holds a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology and Political Science and a Master of Arts in Social Change with a concentration in Spiritual Leadership, Womanist Theology, and Racial Justice. She is the founder of Black Girl Mixtape, a multi-platform safe think-space centering the intellectual and creative authority of black women in the form of a lecture series, an online learning institute, and a creative collaborative.

EbonyJanice is also the founder of Dream Yourself Free, a Spiritual Mentoring project focused on black women's healing, dreaming, ease, play, and wholeness as their activism and resistance work.

# 1 New York Times bestselling and Newbery Honor author Renée Watson explores friendship, loss, and life with grief in this poignant novel in verse and vignettes.

Sage's thirteenth birthday was supposed to be about movies and treats, staying up late with her best friend and watching the sunrise together. Instead, it was the day her best friend died. Without the person she had to hold her secrets and dream with, Sage is lost. In a counseling group with other girls who have lost someone close to them, she learns that not all losses are the same, and healing isn't predictable. There is sadness, loneliness, anxiety, guilt, pain, love. And even as Sage grieves, new, good things enter her life-and she just may find a way to know that she can feel it all.

In accessible, engaging verse and prose, this is a story of a girl's journey to heal, grow, and forgive herself. To read it is to see how many shades there are in grief, and to know that someone understands.

Welcome to “the mommune.”

From New York Times bestselling author Domenica Ruta comes a heartfelt, hilarious novel about a single mom reimagining what the perfect family can look like.

“A delight, a romp, a tale of redemption; sexy and relatable, heartwarming and true . . . This story will resound as a rallying cry for mothers everywhere for generations to come.”—Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman

Sandy thought she was making her greatest mistake yet when she got unexpectedly pregnant in her mid-thirties by a dating-app flop. Now, her baby Rosie is the love of her life, but trying to co-parent with her daughter’s dad, a wannabe rock star, is a challenge—and seems to be veering into catastrophe territory when Sandy finds out through social media that her daughter has a half-sibling Sandy doesn’t know anything about.

Enter her ex’s ex, Stephanie, the other mother. Sandy is prepared to hate her but when the two women meet, they are shocked to learn how much they have in common beyond the deadbeat father their children share. Now Sandy needs to figure out what her and Rosie’s family looks like with all these new additions. Could life in a “mommune” be the answer to her prayers, or just a new brand of chaos?

In this winning story of family both born and chosen, Sandy is about to discover that when nothing goes as planned, the best things become possible.

A Guardian Best Book of the Year

Finalist for the T. S. Eliot Prize and The Costa Poetry Award

“Exquisite.” ―The New York Times Book Review

“Brave, tender and generous. . . . A haunting study of what we can find in the silences of history when history is recognized as more than a noun, when recognized as something alive and kinetic.” ―Camonghne Felix, author of Build Yourself a Boat

On the heels of his much-lauded debut collection, Raymond Antrobus continues his essential investigation into language, miscommunication, place, and memory in All The Names Given, while simultaneously breaking new ground in both form and content. 

The collection opens with poems about the author’s surname―one that shouldn’t have survived into modernity―and examines the rich and fraught history carried within it. As Antrobus outlines a childhood caught between intimacy and brutality, sound and silence, and conflicting racial and cultural identities, the poem becomes a space in which the poet reckons with his own ancestry, and bears witness to the indelible violence of the legacy wrought by colonialism. The poems travel through space―shifting fluidly between England, South Africa, Jamaica, and the American South―and brilliantly move from an examination of family history into the wandering lust of adolescence and finally, vividly, into a complex array of marriage poems―matured, wiser, and more accepting of love’s fragility. Throughout, All The Names Given is punctuated with [Caption Poems] partially inspired by Deaf sound artist Christine Sun Kim, in which the art of writing captions attempts to fill in the silences and transitions between the poems as well as moments inside and outside of them. 

Formally sophisticated, with a weighty perception and startling directness, All The Names Given is a timely, tender book full of humanity and remembrance from one of the most important young poets of our generation.

In this compelling, moving story about brotherhood, identity, and social justice, a Black, autistic teen tries to figure out what happened the night his older brother was unjustly arrested.

All Aiden has ever wanted to do was play football just like his star quarterback brother, Brandon. An overstimulation meltdown gets in the way of Aiden making the team during summer tryouts, but when the school year starts and a spot unexpectedly needs to be filled, he finally gets a chance to play the game he loves.

However, not every player is happy about the new addition to the team, wary of how Aiden’s autism will present itself on game day. Tensions rise. A fight breaks out. Cops are called.

Brandon interferes on behalf of his brother, but is arrested by the very same cops who, just hours earlier, were chanting his name from the bleachers. When he’s wrongly charged for felony assault on an officer, everything Brandon has worked for starts to slip away, and the brothers’ relationship is tested. As Brandon’s trial inches closer, Aiden is desperate to figure out what really happened that night. Can he clear his brother’s name in time?