Acclaimed author Richard Ho and artist Xuân Lan take readers on a tour of Asian homes around the world—just please remember to leave your shoes at the door! A rich exploration of cultures, families, and traditions for fans of A Big Mooncake for Little Star and Eyes that Kiss in the Corners.

Welcome. You are about to step into an Asian home. But before you do. . . please remove your shoes.

Slippers are allowed. Socks and bare feet, too. You may have always taken off your shoes before stepping into a home, or it may be new to you. But have you ever stopped to wonder why it is a common practice to take off your shoes in Asian households?

Richard Ho explains the custom, which spans across cultures and generations, in his thoughtful, richly layered text that is excellent for reading aloud. Xuân Lan's playful artwork showcases a variety of Asian cultures and introduces a young cat to lead readers on a journey through time and place.

Along with the curious cat, readers will:

* Visit an ancient Chinese village, an historic Korean classroom, a modern Japanese dining room, and many more places.
* Honor the cultures and traditions of the Asian diaspora.
* Celebrate our feet, which work so hard every day.
* Learn more from the author's note and visual glossary providing further details about each culture's customs.

Now available in trade paper!

Love isn't about finding the right person—it's about becoming the right person.

No matter your relationships status—single, dating, engaged, married, or divorced—Student of Love invites you back into the classroom to learn what it truly takes to build healthy, loving and long-lasting relationships. From Laterras R. Whitfield, the host of the Dear Future Wifey Podcast and widely regarded as "The Relationship Whisperer," comes an essential guide—offering a God-centered perspective on healthy relationships—packed with refreshing wisdom and heartfelt lessons designed to equip you to make the right decisions in all your relationships.

In a world fixated on finding love, Student of Love shifts the focus to becoming love—offering raw, relatable lessons and hopeful perspectives that resonate with healing, growth, and self-discovery.

What makes this book a must-read?

Laterras steps into the classroom not as a professor, but as a fellow student—creating a space where vulnerability meets wisdom. Here's what's in the curriculum:

* A fresh approach to relationships: Learn from your mistakes and use them as steppingstones to build a more intentional and fulfilling love life.
* Recognize and define the types of Love: Gain the clarity, knowledge, and courage to seek the right connections.
* Guidance for every stage of love: Whether you're navigating the early days of dating, strengthening a marriage, or healing from heartbreak, or focusing on yourself, this book meets you where you are.
* Courageous conversations: Laterras tackles the tough topics with compassion and candor, offering profound insights that challenge and heal.
* Find the roadmap to self-awareness: Discover how to show up in your relationships with confidence, clarity, and authenticity.
* Hope after heartbreak: Heartache isn't the end of your story—it's a chance to rewrite it. Learn how to reassess, rediscover, and rebuild from a place of strength and self-love.

With brutal honesty and heartfelt authenticity, Student of Love explores the complexities of love in all its forms. It's not just a book—it's a guide to uncovering the love you deserve, starting with the love you give yourself.

Your love story isn't over. It's just beginning. So, grab your backpack, open your heart, and let Student of Love help you write the next chapter—one lesson at a time.

When an isolated young woman finds herself struggling to cope with new motherhood in a new country, she begins to feel like things can’t get much worse—until her baby goes missing.

Friday, 2:30 PM: Reema takes her infant daughter Anaya to the park for a playdate with Elizabeth, a friend she made online.

Friday, 4:04 PM: Elizabeth offers to watch Anaya while Reema goes to the restroom.

Friday, 4:08 PM: Anaya is gone.

Upon returning to an empty bench where Elizabeth and Anaya should be, Reema is overwhelmed with panic—why can't she see them anywhere? Was Elizabeth trying to soothe a fussy Anaya with a walk? Was she trying to move Anaya out of the sun so she didn't get overheated? With each minute that ticks by as Reema searches the park in a frenzy, a terrifying truth begins to sink in—Elizabeth has taken her child.

Friday, 4:45 PM: The police arrive.

But their presence is far from comforting—in fact, the more questions the detectives ask, the more their focus seems to shift away from Elizabeth and onto...Reema? As hours go by, Reema can sense that the police, her husband, his family, her neighbors, the media, they all blame her, even as the investigation exposes secrets and lies that everyone around her has been hiding.

Saturday, 3:12 PM: Reema takes matters into her own hands. Everyone thinks she’s not a good mother, but she’ll prove them wrong. She has to. . . .

Karabi George’s riveting, pulse-pounding debut thriller asks a terrifying question that lingers in the back of all our minds: How much can we really trust the people closest to us?

Celebrate the release of If This World We're Mine with Arriel Vinson!

EVENT DEETS

When: Thursday, January 28 @ 7 PM CST

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

How: 

• RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat.

• RSVP WITH BOOK to reserve your seat and purchase a copy If This World We're Mine, supporting both the author and our store programming. The book will be available for pickup at the event.

Please Note: Books purchased from other retailers are not permitted in the bookstore and are not eligible for the signing or photo line. To participate in the signing and photo opportunity, you must purchase a copy from Kindred Stories.If you already have a copy from Kindred Stories feel free to choose the RSVP only option. 

If you purchase a ticket and are unable to attend the event, your ticket is non-refundable. If your ticket includes a book, an email will be sent to all attendees before and after the event with instructions on how to receive your book. Books must be claimed within 14 days following the event. If your book is not retrieved it will be returned to the publisher and will not be available for pick up in the future.

ABOUT THE BOOK

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Arriel Vinson is a Midwesterner who writes about being young, Black, and in search of freedom. Her debut YA novel-in-verse, Under the Neon Lights, is a 2026 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award winner, a Reese’s Book Club LitUp selection, and a Junior Library Guild Gold Selection. Arriel earned her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and is a Tin House YA Scholar, Highlights Foundation scholarship recipient, and Walter Grant recipient. Her sophomore novel, If This World Were Mine, is forthcoming in spring 2027. You can connect with her on social media at @arriwrites and find her work at arriwrites.com

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

LIARA TAMANI grew up in Houston, Texas, where every spring meant one thing: rodeo season. She loved getting decked out in her best cowgirl gear and soaking up the music, food, and electric energy of the rodeo, a joy she now shares with her daughter and husband. Her deep Texas roots shine through her storytelling, capturing the spirit and rhythms of the state in all her acclaimed novels: Calling My Name, All the Things We Never Knew, and What She Missed. Before becoming a writer, she attended Harvard Law School and worked as a marketing coordinator for the Houston Rockets and Comets, television production assistant, home accessories designer, floral designer, and yoga and dance teacher. She holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BA from Duke University.

A chart-topping picture book biography about how Bad Bunny went from a small-town dreamer in Puerto Rico to one of the greatest global music icons of all time.

* A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

Right now, in any city in the world, you’ll hear the unmistakable beats of Bad Bunny’s music blasting from speakers.

A global superstar who has sold out stadiums around the world, Bad Bunny is redefining what it means to be an artist. But how did he get here? Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio grew up surrounded by the rhythms and culture of reggaeton. He has not only become an icon of the genre but has transformed it by innovating its sound and challenging the machismo culture of the genre by embracing fluidity in fashion, masculinity, and the LGBTQ+ community. Could young Benito have imagined performing at the Super Bowl, making history by becoming the first artist to win Album of the Year for a project entirely in Spanish, and becoming a voice of hope for millions across the globe?

Inspiring and groundbreaking, Bad Bunny’s story is a must-have for every fan who sings along to his hits—and a reminder that breaking the rules can lead to building a legacy.

There are so many things we once believed were true, good, and beautiful that we now no longer believe. Ideas we once defended with confidence now seem naive, misguided, or even harmful.

Every generation looks back at what their parents believed and rolls their eyes. Every generation thinks they stand on the right side of history, but history has a way of humbling our confidence. That only means future generations will look back and judge us to be wrong, false, and bad.

One day, we also will be on the wrong side of history. It's okay to be wrong about things that don't matter, like cultural trends, personal tastes, and leisure activities. But what if we're wrong about things that really matter, like faith, God, and eternal consequences? What if we've been believing all the wrong things? In How to Be on the Right Side of History, Sam Chan reveals how--when it comes to things of ultimate truth, goodness, beauty, and God--we can have confidence that our beliefs aren't just fads but are grounded in eternal reality.

From high fashion to everyday clothes, this book looks at the personal and political importance of Black style from the 1880s to the present.

Both during and after slavery in North America, “Sunday best” referred to clothes reserved for church or special occasions. Dressing in one’s Sunday best conveyed a sense of dignity and self-worth. Sunday best styling evolved after emancipation into the twentieth century, reflecting subsequent periods of Black cultural liberation, empowerment, and upward mobility. It is emblematic of the ways that self-fashioning in African-diasporic communities affirms humanity and communicates identity.

With examples from Canada, the Caribbean, the United States, and the United Kingdom, Sunday Best features archival and contemporary fashion alongside photography, painting, sculpture, and time-based media, looking at the significance of Black style. Essays by an interdisciplinary group of curators, designers, and scholars consider how communities throughout the African diaspora have used style as a reminder of one’s value, visibility, and agency, and the enduring influence of Sunday best dressing on artistic expression.

This richly illustrated volume is organized around the following themes:

• Origins, featuring fashion design by Christopher John Rogers and photography by James Van Der Zee
• Black church, with art by Coreen Simpson, Gordon Parks, and Laura Wheeler Waring
• Migration, through designers such as Foday Dumbuya
• Liberation, with fashion design by Spencer Badu and photography by Chantal Regnault
• Call and response, including fashion design by Patrick Kelly and photography by Melodie McDaniel

Published in association with the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Exhibition Schedule

Art Gallery of Ontario
(October 6, 2026–February 28, 2027)

Philadelphia Museum of Art
(May 1, 2027–August 8, 2027)

A landmark study of twentieth-century Black picture magazines and their impact on Black American life

From the late 1930s through the early 1970s, national publications such as Our World, Sepia, Color, Elegant, Flash, Brown, and Ebony framed emerging definitions of success for Black middle-class audiences. These magazines featured dynamic photo essays, sometimes by photographers as renowned as Gordon Parks and Moneta Sleet Jr., that shaped perspectives on Black cultural life and influenced the way millions of Americans understood the world through photography.

This history of Black picture magazines and their contribution to American photography, journalism, and cultural production is the first to consider these publications through a visual and scholarly lens. It features more than 250 illustrations, essays by prominent curators and thinkers, and thematic contributions by celebrity experts, including

• Tina Beyoncé Knowles, businesswoman and House of Deréon fashion designer, on beauty culture
• Doug Glanville, sports journalist and former MLB player, on sports
• Carla J. Williams, photographer and 2025 Guggenheim fellow, on pulp pinups
• Jason Moran, jazz musician and MacArthur “genius” award-winner, on music
• TAYLOR ALXNDR, activist and performer, on drag and queer/trans representation

With a comprehensive list of Black picture magazines and the photographers whose work appeared in them, this volume will serve as both a foundational reference and a compelling visual history that reveals the profound role these publications played in defining and circulating images of Black life, achievement, and aspiration in the United States.

Published in association with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Exhibition Schedule:

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
(February 28 to May 31, 2027)

Portland Museum of Art, Maine
(October 8, 2027, to January 9, 2028)

New Orleans Museum of Art
(May 11 to August 6, 2028)

The riveting, darkly humorous, and deeply strange story of three roommates whose everyday struggle to survive in New York is complicated by the intestine-eating demon who haunts their apartment.

Leni was kidnapped and almost sacrificed to the devil as a child, but now she’s perfectly fine. Aside from the fact that she has four reflections in the mirror…and one of them wants her to poison people.

Emerson was a leading heart surgeon until The Incident that left his patient dead. Now he’s too sick to work, keeps finding severed fingers in his water bottles, and is followed around by a faceless Girl Scout with a creaky red wagon.

Jasper is a line cook with a criminal record, just trying to keep his chosen family together. Sure, he sees a man in the shadows who likes the taste of blood, but he’s very good at ignoring that. He would do anything for Leni and Emerson. Anything.

They’re fine. They’re normal. They’re roommates making it work in New York City.

That is, until a demon leaves his sigil on their wall.

Now, they have seven days to bring Sychar a sacrifice, or he’ll tear off their skin. Who knew demon-slaying wasn’t a valid excuse to miss work? Why are murder supplies so expensive? Just how is a low-income household supposed to afford a human sacrifice?

As their personal ghosts grow louder and Sychar’s deadline draws nearer, Leni, Emerson, and Jasper discover just how far they’ll go to protect each other.

For readers who love:
* Grady Hendrix and Stephen King
* Morally gray protector
* Haunted apartment
* Found family in danger
* Demon-slaying
* Darkly funny, deeply haunted stories

An award-winning young scholar explores how Black women have remade―and continue to remake―our understanding of the past.

Across centuries, Black women have invented means to preserve what official history could not: friendship albums, kitchen-table philosophy, blogs, playlists, oral histories, and archives held in the mind. In The Light Keepers, Jessica Marie Johnson traces this radical tradition through the centuries-long prism of American empire, from the holds of slave ships to contemporary digital worlds, showing that there is nothing finished or settled about how Black women understand time, trauma, and survival.

Blending personal narrative, archival fragments, and ancestral wisdom, Johnson reframes Black women not as subjects of history but as archivists and historians. Against erasure, against shame, against death itself, Black women have transformed the bitterest waters of history into tools for living, loving, and imagining freedom. The Light Keepers offers readers a daring new way to think about the past―and a powerful lesson in how knowledge is made when survival demands it.

88 illustrations