On January 20, 2021, Amanda Gorman became the sixth and youngest poet to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration. Taking the stage after the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden, Gorman captivated the nation and brought hope to viewers around the globe with her call for unity and healing. Including a foreword by Oprah Winfrey, Gorman's poem celebrates the promise of America and affirms the power of poetry. --From publisher...

"Set in the 1980s in racially and politically turbulent Philadelphia and in the tiny town of Bonaparte, Alabama--about a mother fighting for her sanity and survival"-- From the moment Ava Carson and her ten-year-old son, Toussaint, arrive at the Glenn Avenue family shelter in Philadelphia 1985, Ava is already plotting a way out. She is repulsed by the shelter's squalid conditions: their cockroach-infested room, the barely edible food, and the shifty...

"In her groundbreaking and essential debut The Three Mothers, scholar Anna Malaika Tubbs celebrates Black motherhood by telling the story of the three women who raised and shaped some of America's most pivotal heroes: Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin. Much has been written about Berdis Baldwin's son James, about Alberta King's son Martin Luther, and Louise Little's son Malcolm. But virtually nothing has been said about the extraordinary...

"Two girls. One wild and reckless day. Years of tumultuous history unspooling like a thin, fraying string in the hours after they set a fire. They were best friends. Until they became more. Their affections grew. Until the blurry lines became dangerous. Over the course of a single day, the depth of their past, the confusion of their present, and the unpredictability of their future is revealed. And the girls will learn that hearts, like flames, aren't...

"Mrs. Obama offers readers a series of fresh stories and insightful reflections on change, challenge, and power, including her belief that when we light up for others, we can illuminate the richness and potential of the world around us, discovering deeper truths and new pathways for progress. Drawing from her experiences as a mother, daughter, spouse, friend, and First Lady, she shares the habits and principles she has developed to successfully adapt...

A beautiful, arresting short story by Toni Morrison--the only one she ever wrote--about race and the relationships that shape us through life, with an introduction by Zadie Smith. Twyla and Roberta have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four moths together as roommates in the St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable at the time, they lose touch as they grow older, only to find each other later at a diner, then at a grocery store,...

"El fenómeno del básquetbol, Josh Bell, y su hermano gemelo, Jordan, son los reyes de la cancha, con esos crossovers inesperados que hacen llorar a los jugadores más duros. Pero cuando Jordan conoce a la nueva chica del colegio, lazos entre los gemelos se empiezan a desanudar. El baloncesto y la hermandad se entrelazan para mostrarles a Josh y Jordan que la vida no viene con un manual de jugadas y que, a veces, el asunto no es ganar."-- Twelve-year-old...

"When Walela is diagnosed at twenty-three with advanced stage blood cancer, they're suddenly thrust into the unsympathetic world of tubes and pills, doctors who don't use their correct pronouns, and hordes of "well-meaning" but patronizing people offering unsolicited advice as they navigate rocky personal relationships and share their story online. But this experience also deepens their relationship to their ancestors, providing added support from...

Born on a plantation but set apart from the others by her mother's position as a medicine woman, a young slave is forced to leave home at eighteen and unexpectedly finds herself in an infamously cruel jail. Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Brown was promised her freedom on her eighteenth birthday. Instead she finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil's Half-Acre, a jail where slaves are broken, tortured,...

It is 1970 in Red Grove, Alabama, and at Lu Olivera's school the white kids and black kids sit on different sides of the classroom. Six-grader Lu just wants to get along with everyone, but growing racial tensions will not let Lu stay neutral about the racial divide in school. Her old friends have been changing lately--acting boy crazy and making snide remarks about Lu's newfound talent for running track. Lu's secret hope for a new friend is fellow...