List

"The energy. The clarity. The beauty. Elisabet Velasquez brings it all. . . . Her voice is FIRE!"—NYT bestselling and award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson

An unforgettable, torrential, and hopeful debut young adult novel-in-verse that redefines what it means to "make it,” for readers of Nicholasa Mohr and Elizabeth Acevedo.

Sarai is a first-generation Puerto Rican question asker who can see with clarity the truth, pain, and beauty of the world both inside and outside her Bushwick apartment. Together with her older sister, Estrella, she navigates the strain of family traumas and the systemic pressures of toxic masculinity and housing insecurity in a rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn. Sarai questions the society around her, her Boricua identity, and the life she lives with determination and an open heart, learning to celebrate herself in a way that she has long been denied.

When We Make It is a love letter to anyone who was taught to believe that they would not make it. To those who feel their emotions before they can name them. To those who still may not have all the language but they have their story. Velasquez’ debut novel is sure to leave an indelible mark on all who read it.

New York Times and USA Today bestseller * Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor * Walter Award Winner * Goodreads Finalist for Best Teen Book of the Year * Time Magazine Best Book of the Year * Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year * Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year * School Library Journal Best Book of the Year * Kirkus Best Book of the Year * New York Public Library Best Book of the Year

From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. A must-read for fans of Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, and Elizabeth Acevedo.

The story that I thought

was my life

didn't start on the day

I was born

Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, because of a biased system he's seen as disruptive and unmotivated. Then, one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. "Boys just being boys" turns out to be true only when those boys are white.

The story that I think

will be my life

starts today

Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal is convicted of a crime he didn't commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it?

With spellbinding lyricism, award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam tell a moving and deeply profound story about how one boy is able to maintain his humanity and fight for the truth in a system designed to strip him of both.

A New York Times bestseller and one of 2019's best-reviewed books, a poetic memoir and call to action from the award-winning author of Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson!

Bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson is known for the unflinching way she writes about, and advocates for, survivors of sexual assault. Now, inspired by her fans and enraged by how little in our culture has changed since her groundbreaking novel Speak was first published twenty years ago, she has written a poetry memoir that is as vulnerable as it is rallying, as timely as it is timeless. In free verse, Anderson shares reflections, rants, and calls to action woven between deeply personal stories from her life that she's never written about before. Described as "powerful," "captivating," and "essential" in the nine starred reviews it's received, this must-read memoir is being hailed as one of 2019's best books for teens and adults. A denouncement of our society's failures and a love letter to all the people with the courage to say #MeToo and #TimesUp, whether aloud, online, or only in their own hearts, SHOUT speaks truth to power in a loud, clear voice-- and once you hear it, it is impossible to ignore.

FINALIST FOR THE 2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE

A debut YA novel-in-verse by Amber McBride, Me (Moth) is about a teen girl who is grieving the deaths of her family, and a teen boy who crosses her path. 

Moth has lost her family in an accident. Though she lives with her aunt, she feels alone and uprooted.

Until she meets Sani, a boy who is also searching for his roots. If he knows more about where he comes from, maybe he’ll be able to understand his ongoing depression. And if Moth can help him feel grounded, then perhaps she too will discover the history she carries in her bones.

Moth and Sani take a road trip that has them chasing ghosts and searching for ancestors. The way each moves forward is surprising, powerful, and unforgettable.

Here is an exquisite and uplifting novel about identity, first love, and the ways that our memories and our roots steer us through the universe.

Robin Gow's A Million Quiet Revolutions is a modern love story, told in verse, about two teenaged trans boys who name themselves after two Revolutionary War soldiers. A lyrical, aching young adult romance perfect for fans of The Poet X, Darius the Great is Not Okay, and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Universe.

For as long as they can remember, Aaron and Oliver have only ever had each other. In a small town with few queer teenagers, let alone young trans men, they’ve shared milestones like coming out as trans, buying the right binders—and falling for each other.

But just as their relationship has started to blossom, Aaron moves away. Feeling adrift, separated from the one person who understands them, they seek solace in digging deep into the annals of America’s past. When they discover the story of two Revolutionary War soldiers who they believe to have been trans man in love, they’re inspired to pay tribute to these soldiers by adopting their names—Aaron and Oliver. As they learn, they delve further into unwritten queer stories, and they discover the transformative power of reclaiming one’s place in history. 

Further reading on trans history is included in backmatter.

The definitive sampling of a writer whose poems were “at the forefront of the Harlem Renaissance and of modernism itself, and today are fundamentals of American culture” (OPRAH Magazine).

Here, for the first time, are all the poems that Langston Hughes published during his lifetime, arranged in the general order in which he wrote them. Lyrical and pungent, passionate and polemical, the result is a treasure of a book, the essential collection of a poet whose words have entered our common language.

The collection spans five decades, and is comprised of 868 poems (nearly 300 of which never before appeared in book form) with annotations by Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel. Alongside such famous works as "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" and Montage of a Dream Deferred, The Collected Poems includes Hughes's lesser-known verse for children; topical poems distributed through the Associated Negro Press; and poems such as "Goodbye Christ" that were once suppressed.

Recently appointed as the new U. S. Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser has been writing and publishing poetry for more than forty years. In the pages of The Poetry Home Repair Manual, Kooser brings those decades of experience to bear. Here are tools and insights, the instructions (and warnings against instructions) that poets—aspiring or practicing—can use to hone their craft, perhaps into art. Using examples from his own rich literary oeuvre and from the work of a number of successful contemporary poets, the author schools us in the critical relationship between poet and reader, which is fundamental to what Kooser believes is poetry’s ultimate purpose: to reach other people and touch their hearts.   Much more than a guidebook to writing and revising poems, this manual has all the comforts and merits of a long and enlightening conversation with a wise and patient old friend—a friend who is willing to share everything he’s learned about the art he’s spent a lifetime learning to execute so well.

Stillwater, the beloved Zen panda, now in his own Apple TV+ original series!

 

Caldecott Honoree and NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author/artist Jon J Muth takes a fresh and exciting new look at the four seasons!

 

Eating warm cookies on a cold day is easy water catchesevery thrown stone skip skip splash With a featherlight touch and disarming charm, Jon J Muth--and his delightful little panda bear, Koo--challenge readers to stretch their minds and imaginations with twenty-six haikus about the four seasons.

Spanning over 250 years of history, Black Ink traces black literature in America from Frederick Douglass to Ta-Nehisi Coates in this masterful collection of twenty-five illustrious and moving essays on the power of the written word.

Throughout American history black people are the only group of people to have been forbidden by law to learn to read. This unique collection seeks to shed light on that injustice and subjugation, as well as the hard-won literary progress made, putting some of America’s most cherished voices in a conversation in one magnificent volume that presents reading as an act of resistance.

Organized into three sections, the Peril, the Power, and Pleasure, and with an array of contributors both classic and contemporary, Black Ink presents the brilliant diversity of black thought in America while solidifying the importance of these writers within the greater context of the American literary tradition. At times haunting and other times profoundly humorous, this unprecedented anthology guides you through the remarkable experiences of some of America’s greatest writers and their lifelong pursuits of literacy and literature.

The foreword was written by Nikki Giovanni. Contributors include: Frederick Douglass, Solomon Northup, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Maya Angelou, Martin Luther King, Jr., Toni Morrison, Walter Dean Myers, Stokely Carmichael [Kwame Ture], Alice Walker, Jamaica Kincaid, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Terry McMillan, Junot Diaz, Edwidge Danticat, Colson Whitehead, Marlon James, Roxane Gay, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Colson Whitehead.

The anthology features a bonus in-depth interview with President Barack Obama.

Storytelling is an ancient and powerful human tradition. It ties us to cultural memory and the experiences of those who came before us, linking one generation to the next. Oral tradition is of keen importance to Black heritage and is honored here in this classic work by poet and Harlem Renaissance leader Langston Hughes. Vivid illustrations by contemporary artist Gary Kelley pair with Hughes's 1926 poem in picture-book form to invite young learners to curl up and listen as Aunt Sue recounts her many shadow-crossed stories of slavery and a life hard lived.

The only comprehensive gathering of Frost's published poetry, this affordable volume offers the entire contents of his eleven books of verse, from A Boy's Will (1913) to In the Clearing (1962). Frost scholar Lathem, who was also a close friend of the four-time Pulitzer Prize-winner, scrupulously annotated the 350-plus poems in this collection, which has been the standard edition of Frost's work since it first appeared in 1969.
 

At lunch, / I ate three cans / of alphabet soup. / An hour later / I had / thesaurus / throat / ever.

Would you care for a cupful of couplets? How about a helping of haiku? Brian P. Cleary offers poetry by the plateful in this clever collection! Wordplay and humor abound in poems that cover everything from pets to school to food--and much more. Eye-catching illustrations add to the fun, and the book is sprinkled with bonus facts about poetic forms and rhyme schemes. Whether grabbing a quick bite or sitting down to a full meal, readers will laugh, giggle, chuckle, and chortle their way through this poetic feast!

 

"Kooser . . . must be the most accessible and enjoyable major poet in America. His lines are so clear and simple." --Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

"Nothing escapes him; everything is illuminated." --Library Journal

"Will one day rank alongside of Edgar Lee Masters, Robert Frost, and William Carlos Williams." --Minneapolis Tribune

"Kooser's ability to discover the smallest detail and render it remarkable is a rare gift." --The Bloomsbury Review

Four decades of poetry--and a generous selection of new work--make up this extraordinary collection by Pulitzer Prize winner Ted Kooser. Firmly rooted in the landscapes of the Midwest, Kooser's poetry succeeds in finding the emotional resonances within the ordinary. Kooser's language of quiet intensity trains itself on the intricacies of human relationships, as well as the animals and objects that make up our days. As Poetry magazine said of his work, "Kooser documents the dignities, habits, and small griefs of daily life, our hunger for connection, our struggle to find balance."

From "March 2":

Patchy clouds and windy.
All morning
our house has been flashing in and out of shade
like a signal, and far across the waves of grass
a neighbor's house has answered,
offering help.

Ted Kooser is the author of eleven collections of poetry, including Delights & Shadows, which won the Pulitzer Prize. He served as the Poet Laureate of the United States, and is a visiting professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

A tale in haiku
of one adorable dog.
Let’s find him a home.

Wandering through the neighborhood in the early-morning hours, a stray pooch follows his nose to a back-porch door. After a bath and some table scraps from Mom, the dog meets three lovable kids. It’s all wags and wiggles until Dad has to decide if this stray pup can become the new family pet. Has Mooch finally found a home? Told entirely in haiku by master storyteller Andrew Clements, this delightful book is a clever fusion of poetry and puppy dog.

In homage to Gloria Anzaldúa and her iconic work Borderlands/La Frontera, award-winning poets ire'ne lara silva and Dan Vera have assembled the work of 54 writers who reflect on the complex terrain--the deeply felt psychic, social, and geopolitical borderlands--that Anzaldúa inhabited, theorized, explored, and invented.

Named for the Nahuatl word meaning "their soul," Imaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands presents work that is sparked from the soul: the individual soul, the communal soul. These poets interrogate, complicate, and personalize the borderlands in transgressive and transformative ways, opening new paths and revisioning old ones for the next generation of spiritual, political, and cultural border crossers.

"Within shifting borders-it is good to enter into these voice worlds-to stand, bow & listen in their presence. Peoples, familias, cities, towns, rancherías and the wilderness of all border-crossers & messengers of border spaces open in these pages." -From the Introduction by Juan Felipe Herrera, US Poet Laureate

Contributors include: Juan Felipe Herrera, Rodney Gomez, Daniel E. Solís y Martínez, Carmen Calatayud, ire'ne lara silva, Tara Betts, José Antonio Rodríguez, David Hatfield Sparks, Barbara Jane Reyes, Miguel M. Morales, Cecca Austin Ochoa, Cordelia Barrera, Oswaldo Vargas, Emmy Pérez, Dan Vera, Michael Wasson, Melanie Márquez Adams, Tomas Moniz, Gabriela Ramirez-Chavez, D.M. Chávez, Inés Hernández-Avila, Nidia Melissa Bautista, Nadine Saliba, Monica Palacios, Jennine DOC Wright, César L. De León, Nia Witherspoon, Joe Jiménez, Roy G. Guzmán, Veronica Sandoval, Juan Morales, Victor Payan, Abigail Carl-Klassen, Sarah A. Chavez, Rachel McKibbens, jo reyes-boitel, Adela Najarro, Elsie Rivas Gómez, Lupe Mendez, T. Sarmina, Shauna Osborn, Marie Varghese, Allen Baros, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Ysabel Y. González, Minal Hajratwala, Karla Cordero, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Pablo Miguel Martínez, Barbara Brinson Curiel, Olga García Echeverría, Suzy de Jesus Huerta, David Bowles, John Fry, Kim Shuck

Some of the animals in this book are real. They include:

 

• the hippopotamus (she's missing)

 

 

• the elephant (he's artistically talented)

 

 

• the octopus (it's great at multitasking).

 

Others may not be quite so real. These include:

 

• the wiguana (very hairy, for a lizard)

 

 

• the halibutterfly (there's something fishy about it)

 

 

• the gludu (quite clingy).

 

In the tradition of Jack Prelutsky's classic poetry collections The New Kid on the Block, It's Raining Pigs & Noodles, and A Pizza the Size of the Sun, here is a book packed with more than 100 funny poems and silly pictures. Most of the poems are about animals—some are big and some are small, some have unusual interests, and some are just plain unusual.

"A gorgeous collection. . . . These poems unplug from TV and social media and the outrage of the moment and turn our attention to the immediate and the everlasting, human intimacy and the power and mystery of nature." --Tampa Bay Times

In this intimate collection, Barbara Kingsolver, beloved author of The Poisonwood Bible and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Demon Copperhead, and recipient of numerous literary awards including the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguish Contribution to American Letters, trains her eye on the everyday and the metaphysical in poems that are beautifully crafted, emotionally rich, and luminous

In her second poetry collection, Kingsolver offers reflections on the practical, the spiritual, and the wild. She begins with "how to" poems addressing everyday matters such as being hopeful, married, divorced; shearing a sheep; praying to unreliable gods; doing nothing at all; and of course, flying. Next come rafts of poems about making peace (or not) with the complicated bonds of friendship and family, and making peace (or not) with death, in the many ways it finds us. Some poems reflect on the redemptive powers of art and poetry itself; others consider where everything begins. Closing the book are poems that celebrate natural wonders--birdsong and ghost-flowers, ruthless ants, clever shellfish, coral reefs, deadly deserts, and thousand-year-old beech trees--all speaking to the daring project of belonging to an untamed world beyond ourselves.

Altogether, these are poems about transcendence: finding breath and lightness in life and the everyday acts of living. It's all terribly easy and, as the title suggests, not entirely possible. Or at least, it is never quite finished.

The largest single anthology of Jane Yolen's poetry, containing more than one hundred poems for all occasions—with fun black-and-white art throughout.

Our Kitchen
Smells of mornings,
blueberry muffins,
hot chocolate, tea.
It smells of bacon
and of eggs.
It smells of family.

For the first time, legendary author Jane Yolen gathers the largest single anthology of her poetry celebrating childhood. At home or at school, playing sports or practicing music, enjoying the holidays or delighting in each season, Jane Yolen’s masterful collection shows just how lively it is to be a kid. With whimsical artwork by Cathrin Peterslund, this collection of more than one hundred poems is a classic that children are sure to return to again and again.

A lively sampling from the work of one of the most celebrated and daring poets of the twentieth century

John Berryman was perhaps the most idiosyncratic American poet of the twentieth century. Best known for the painfully sad and raucously funny cycle of Dream Songs, he wrote passionately: of love and despair, of grief and laughter, of longing for a better world and coming to terms with this one. The Heart Is Strange, a new selection of his poems, along with reissues of Berryman's Sonnets, 77 Dream Songs, and the complete Dream Songs, marks the centenary of his birth.
The Heart Is Strange includes a generous selection from across Berryman's varied career: from his earliest poems, which show him learning the craft, to his breakthrough masterpiece, "Homage to Mistress Bradstreet," then to his mature verses, which find the poet looking back upon his lovers and youthful passions, and finally, to his late poems, in which he battles with sobriety and an increasingly religious sensibility.
The defiant joy and wild genius of Berryman's work has been obscured by his struggles with mental illness and alcohol, his tempestuous relationships with women, and his suicide. This volume, which includes three previously uncollected poems and an insightful introduction by the editor Daniel Swift, celebrates the whole Berryman: tortured poet and teasing father, passionate lover and melancholy scholar. It is a perfect introduction to one of the finest bodies of work yet produced by an American poet.

With 6 starred reviews, 8 best of the year lists, and over 20 state award nominations, everyone is raving about Mirror Mirror!

"Remarkable."—The Washington Post

"This mind-bending poetry is accompanied by Masse's equally intelligent, equally amusing art."—Time Out New York for Kids

What’s brewing when two favorites—poetry and fairy tales—are turned (literally) on their heads? It’s a revolutionary recipe: an infectious new genre of poetry and a lovably modern take on classic stories.

First, read the poems forward (how old-fashioned!), then reverse the lines and read again to give familiar tales, from Sleeping Beauty to that Charming Prince, a delicious new spin. Witty, irreverent, and warm, this gorgeously illustrated and utterly unique offering holds a mirror up to language and fairy tales, and renews the fun and magic of both.

A first-of-its-kind anthology of hip-hop poetica written for and by the people.

A Kirkus Reviewsmost anticipated picture book of fall 2019 by Nadia L. Hohn, named one of CBC's "6 Black Canadian writers to watch"

Louise Bennett Coverley, better known as Miss Lou, was an iconic poet and entertainer known for popularizing the use of patois in music and poetry internationally--helping to pave the way for artists like Harry Belafonte and Bob Marley to use patois in their work. This picture book tells the story of Miss Lou's early years, when she was a young girl growing up in Jamaica.

As a child, Miss Lou loved words--particularly the Jamaican English, or patois, that she heard all around her. As a young writer, Miss Lou felt caught between writing "lines of words like tight cornrows," as her teachers instructed, and words that beat more naturally "in time with her heart."

The uplifting and inspiring story of a girl finding her own voice, this is also a vibrant, colorful, and immersive look at an important figure in our cultural history. With rich and warm illustrations bringing the story to life, A Likkle Miss Louis a modern ode to language, girl power, diversity, and the arts.

End matter includes a glossary of Jamaican patois terms, a note about the author's #OwnVoices perspective as a Jamaican-Canadian writer, and a brief biography of Miss Lou and her connection to Canada, where she lived for 20 years.

An arresting study of memory, perception, and the human condition, from the Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Phillips. 

Carl Phillips’s Scattered Snows, to the North is a collection about distortion and revelation, about knowing and the unreliability of a knowing that’s based on human memory. If the poet’s last few books have concerned themselves with power, this one focuses on vulnerability: the usefulness of embracing it and of releasing ourselves from the need to understand our past. If we remember a thing, did it happen? If we believe it didn’t, does that make our belief true? 

In Scattered Snows, to the North, Phillips looks though the window of the past in order to understand the essential sameness of the human condition—“Tears / were tears,” mistakes were made and regretted or not regretted, and it mattered until it didn’t, the way people live until they don’t. And there was also joy. And beauty. “Yet the world’s still / so beautiful . . . Sometimes // it is . . .” And it was enough. And it still can be.

Equal parts heart-melting and stinky, The Smell of Wet Dog is a must-have illustrated poetry book for every young canine fan.

The smell of wet dog is not a good smell.
When a dog is wet it’s easy to tell.
Imagine moose and skunk perfume.
An odiferous stench, a paint-peeling plume.

Beloved author and illustrator Barney Saltzberg offers up twenty-seven poems on the evergreen topic of human’s best friend. Many have all the humor of a Shel Silverstein classic. Others are unexpectedly poignant, about separation anxiety or older dogs growing less spry. All are accompanied by Saltzberg’s lively and loveable artwork. 

Whether you are a dog lover, love a dog lover, or are simply dog-curious, The Smell of Wet Dog is for someone in your life. One thing’s for sure: You’ll leave this book inspired to write an ode to a furry friend of your own!

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

* WINNER of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work *

Alice Walker, author of the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning The Color Purple—“an American novel of permanent importance” (San Francisco Chronicle)—crafts a bilingual collection that is both playfully imaginative and intensely moving.

Presented in both English and Spanish, Alice Walker shares a timely collection of nearly seventy works of passionate and powerful poetry that bears witness to our troubled times, while also chronicling a life well-lived. From poems of painful self-inquiry, to celebrating the simple beauty of baking frittatas, Walker offers us a window into her magical, at times difficult, and liberating world of activism, love, hope and, above all, gratitude. Whether she’s urging us to preserve an urban paradise or behold the delicate necessity of beauty to the spirit, Walker encourages us to honor the divine that lives inside all of us and brings her legendary free verse to the page once again, demonstrating that she remains a revolutionary poet and an inspiration to generations of fans.

A poetry collection that both illustrates what mindfulness is and encourages young, growing minds to be present, from poet and educator Georgia Heard, with art by Isabel Roxas.

Poets have long observed the world in a mindful way. They point out beauty we might have missed, draw our attention to our inner thoughts, and call us to see our society in new ways.

But as daily life become more and more chaotic, children grow distracted. According to the CDC, 9.4% of children have ADHD and 7% have anxiety/depression. And these numbers continue to climb. As treatment doctors recommend healthy eating, physical activity, plenty of sleep, and mindfulness techniques.

Georgia Heard is a poet and educator—and she has long had her own meditation practice. In My Thoughts Are Clouds, she uses poetry to demonstrate what mindfulness is and gives kids—and their parents and teachers—accessible ways to learn mindfulness tools.

A New York Times Editors' Choice One of the New York Times Book Review's 100 Notable Books

Fusing the personal and the political in high-voltage verse, Amiri Baraka--"whose long illumination of the black experience in America was called incandescent in some quarters and incendiary in others" (New York Times)--was one of the preeminent literary innovators of the past century. Selected by Paul Vangelisti, this volume comprises the fullest spectrum of Baraka's rousing, revolutionary poems, from his first collection to previously unpublished pieces composed during his final years.

Throughout Baraka's career as a prolific writer (also published as LeRoi Jones), he was vehemently outspoken against oppression of African American citizens, and he radically altered the discourse surrounding racial inequality. The environments and social values that inspired his poetics changed during the course of his life, a trajectory that can be traced in this retrospective spanning more than five decades of profoundly evolving subjects and techniques. Praised for its lyricism and introspection, his early poetry emerged from the Beat generation, while his later writing is marked by intensely rebellious fervor and subversive ideology. All along, his primary focus was on how to live and love in the present moment despite the enduring difficulties of human history.

A rollicking collection of poems about the enchanting world of animals and insects, from former children's poet laureate and New York Times bestselling author Mary Ann Hoberman and Caldecott Honoree illustrator Marla Frazee.



So many kinds of animals

So many shapes and sizes

So many funny spots and dots

So many strange disguises



With her signature wordplay and wit, former children's poet laureate Mary Ann Hoberman celebrates the magnificence, ingenuity, and quirky qualities of creatures big and small. This thoughtfully crafted collection features sixty of Mary Ann's personal favorite poems curated from her sixty-five-year body of work, as well as eight new poems. 



From a fine fat pig and backward running porcupines to a beastly card game and a yoga class for agile animals, this memorable menagerie is cunningly brought to life by three-time Caldecott Honoree Marla Frazee, in an imaginary world where the characters meet and tell an entertaining tale all their own.



A tour de force collection of poems and pictures by two legendary talents, this book creates a world that readers will never want to leave.

“I don’t know why we do it. We must be crazy./Welcome, fellow poet.”—Richard Hugo 

Richard Hugo, whom Carolyn Kizer called “one of the most passionate, energetic and honest poets living,” was that rare phenomenon—a distinguished poet who was also an inspiring teacher. The Triggering Town is Hugo’s classic collection of lectures, essays, and reflections, all “directed toward helping with that silly, absurd, maddening, futile, enormously rewarding activity: writing poems.” From pieces that include “Writing off the Subject” and “How Poets Make a Living,” anyone, from the beginning poet to the mature writer to the lover of literature, will benefit greatly from Hugo’s playful and profound insights into the mysteries of literary creation.

As part of her tenure as U.S. poet laureate, Ada Limón has written "In Praise of Mystery," which will be engraved on the Europa Clipper spacecraft that launches to Jupiter and its moons in October 2024. Published here as Limón's debut picture book, this luminous poem is illustrated by celebrated and internationally renowned artist Peter Sís.

In Praise of Mystery celebrates humankind's endless curiosity, asks us what it means to explore beyond our known world, and shows how the unknown can reflect us back to ourselves.

Named one of the 100 Notable Books of the Year by The New York Times.

Winner of the National Book Award for Poetry

Named by O as one of the "20 Books of Poetry Everyone Should Own"

"The poems in Migration speak a life-long belief in the power of words to awaken our drowsy souls and see the world with compassionate interconnection."--National Book Award judges' statement

"The publication of W. S. Merwin's selected and new poems is one of those landmark events in the literary world."--Los Angeles Times

W. S. Merwin is the most influential American poet of the last half-century--an artist who has transfigured and reinvigorated the vision of poetry for our time. Migration: New and Selected Poems is that case. This 540-page distillation--selected by Merwin from fifteen diverse volumes--is a gathering of the best poems from a profound body of work, accented by a selection of distinctive new poems.

As an undergraduate at Princeton University, Merwin was advised by John Berryman to "get down on your knees and pray to the muse every day." Migration represents the bounty of those prayers. Over the last fifty years, Merwin's muse has led him beyond the formal verse of his early years to revolutionary open forms that engage a vast array of influences and possibilities. As Adrienne Rich wrote of Merwin's work: "I would be shamelessly jealous of this poetry, if I didn't take so much from it into my own life."

W. S. Merwin is the author of over fifty books of poetry, prose, and translation. He lives in Hawaii, where he raises endangered palm trees.

 

Taking mitochondrial DNA as his guide, Lee explores familial and national legacies, and their persistence across shifting boundaries and the erosions of time. In these poems, the trait of an ancestor appears in the face of a newborn, and in her cry generations of women's voices echo. Stories, both benign and traumatic, travel as lore and DNA. Using lush, exact imagery, whether about the corner bar or a hilltop in Korea, Lee is a careful observer, tracking and documenting the way that seemingly small moments can lead to larger insights.

From Mitochondrial Night:

We’re drumming,
he explained, in the tradition
of shamans,
so the ancestors won't be so lonely.
Because spirits need us
more than we need them.
And for hours
they’ll listen to anyone

Beautifully illustrated by an award-winning artist, this cento poem about experiencing a forest with all of your senses will make the perfect read-aloud for nature lovers and curious explorers of all ages.

Into the forest, dark and deep,
With miles to go before I sleep . . . 
Beneath the holy oaks I wander.
Here, O my heart, just listen!

This vivid and evocative poem reimagines classic lines of poetry from Robert Frost, Mary Oliver, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe and others. Readers will journey into a forest, listen carefully to its sounds, and observe the creatures that call it home.

With swirling colors, the stunning illustrations create scenes of the forest awakening through the eyes of a child – a wolf finds its lair, a deer steps with care, even the trees appear to flutter awake! Through each verse, the forest bursts with life and the trees slowly stretch up toward a starry night sky, whispering a gentle goodnight. And when the child awakens, the forest will be there to greet the morning anew.

A tribute to writers of the past, this stunning picture book by poet Kirsten Hall and award-winning illustrator Evan Turk celebrates the beauty of our forests, and encourages readers to respect, honor, and be in awe of their natural wonders.

An electrifying new picture book by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman

Who are we? We are a billion voices, bright and brave; we are light, standing together in the fight. Girls are strong and powerful alone, but even stronger when they work to uplift one another. In this galvanizing original poem by presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman, girls and girlhood are celebrated in their many forms, all beautiful, not for how they look but for how they look into the face of fear. Creating a rousing rallying cry with vivid illustrations by Loveis Wise, Gorman reminds us how girls have shaped our history while marching boldly into the future.

Watch rupi kaur live now on Prime Video.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of milk and honey and the sun and her flowers comes her greatly anticipated third collection of poetry.

rupi kaur constantly embraces growth, and in home body, she walks readers through a reflective and intimate journey visiting the past, the present, and the potential of the self. home body is a collection of raw, honest conversations with oneself - reminding readers to fill up on love, acceptance, community, family, and embrace change. illustrated by the author, themes of nature and nurture, light and dark, rest here.

i dive into the well of my body
and end up in another world
everything i need
already exists in me
there's no need
to look anywhere else

- home

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón has a keen eye for the natural world.

This poem pulses with the joyful energy of a fox bounding through backyards, piecing together a living in his own way. Paired with lush illustrations by Gaby D'Alessandro, this picture book brings Limón's work to a new generation.

Comes with its streak of red / flashing across the lawn, squirrel / bound and bouncing . . .

From one of the most influential writers of his generation, a gorgeously surprising poetry collection about memory, history, and the act of looking back

Following several of his internationally acclaimed novels, A Year of Last Things is Michael Ondaatje’s long-awaited return to poetry. In pieces that are sometimes witty, sometimes moving, and always wise, we journey back through time by way of alchemical leaps, unearthing writings by revered masters, moments of shared tenderness, and the abandoned landscapes we hold on to to rediscover the influence of every border crossed.

Moving from a Sri Lankan boarding school to Molière’s chair during his last stage performance, to Bulgarian churches and their icons, to the California coast and his beloved Canadian rivers, Michael Ondaatje casts a brilliant eye that merges memory with the present, in the way memory as the distant shores of art and lost friends continue to influence everything that surrounds him.

From his poem "His chair, a narrow bed, a motel room, the fox":
At the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles Sam Cooke was shot dead.
‘See that shadow on the wall . . .’ All those motels and hotels
in literature and song, where X wrote this,
where Y got drunk, where Z overdosed.
The one Hank Williams was driven past, dead already in his car.
The Slavianski Bazaar Hotel in "The Lady with a Dog,"
where Dmitri imagines their dark but hopeful future.
The Hôtel de ville de Courtrai, where Verlaine shot Rimbaud.
The Casa Verdi in Milan, where retired opera singers were welcomed
along with various heteronyms of Fernando Pessoa in their afterlife.

In this collection of poems that's a science, poetry, and adventure story all rolled into one, noted children's poet Jane Yolen takes readers on an expedition underground.

This thought-provoking collection will evoke a sense of wonder and awe in readers, as they discover the mysterious world underneath us. Kids will explore everything from animal burrows, to human creations -- like subways -- to ancient cities and fossils.  Even deeper down, there are caves, magma, and Earth's tectonic plates. The illustrations show how girl and boy, accompanied by several animals, go on a fantastic underground journey. In these poems, young readers will see that beneath us are the past, the present, and the future.

Make a cup of tea and let yourself feel.

Pillow Thoughts is a collection of poetry and prose about heartbreak, love, and raw emotions. It is divided into sections to read when you feel you need them most.

Young wildlife lovers are invited to explore how and why animals eat what they do in this nonfiction poetry picture book collection for kids.

Explore how narwhals, jellyfish, hippos, piranhas, and many more species of swimming, land-based, and flying animals satisfy their appetites in a collection of culinary poems.

A creative companion to Now You See Them, Now You Don't: Poems About Creatures That Hide and A Place to Start a Family: Poems About Creatures That Build by celebrated author and science expert David L. Harrison and award-winning illustrator, Giles Laroche.

With this groundbreaking collection Classical Chinese Poetry, translated and edited by the renowned poet and translator David Hinton, a new generation will be introduced to the work that riveted Ezra Pound and transformed modern poetry.

The Chinese poetic tradition is the largest and longest continuous tradition in world literature, and this rich and far-reaching anthology of nearly five hundred poems provides a comprehensive account of its first three millennia (1500 BCE to 1200 CE), the period during which virtually all its landmark developments took place. Unlike earlier anthologies of Chinese poetry, Hinton's book focuses on a relatively small number of poets, providing selections that are large enough to re-create each as a fully realized and unique voice. New introductions to each poet's work provide a readable history, told for the first time as a series of poetic innovations forged by a series of master poets.

From the classic texts of Chinese philosophy to intensely personal lyrics, from love poems to startling and strange perspectives on nature, Hinton has collected an entire world of beauty and insight. And in his eye-opening translations, these ancient poems feel remarkably fresh and contemporary, presenting a literature both radically new and entirely resonant, in Classical Chinese Poetry.

The perfect gift for young soccer fans, this picture book features twenty-two imaginative poems that capture all aspects of the world's most popular sport.

From the coach who inspires players to fly like the wind, to the shin guard that begs to be donned, to soccer dreams that fill the night, Soccerverse celebrates soccer. Featuring a diverse cast of girls and boys, the poems in this collection cover winning, losing, teamwork, friendships, skills, good sportsmanship, and, most of all, love for the game. Elizabeth Steinglass cleverly incorporates thirteen different poetic forms throughout the book, defining each in a note at the end, and Edson Ikê's bold artwork is as creative as the poems are surprising.

A pumpkin life cycle book with hominess and heart!

In this rhyming picture book about the life cycle of a pumpkin, a pumpkin becomes something new with each turn of the page, from a flower to a house to a face. Extensive back matter on the pumpkin life cycle, fun pumpkin facts, and a pumpkin seed recipe are included. A perfect book for both home and school libraries. An excellent gift for Halloween or any time of year!

A pumpkin is a seed.

A plain little seed with a secret inside,

A pocket, a pip with a new life to hide.

To hide and to hold

As springtime unfolds,

A pumpkin begins as a seed.

A pumpkin is a sprout.

A curious sprout with one leaf and then two,

A budding, a nudging, a slow peekaboo.

Happy for rain

And sunshine again,

A pumpkin pops out as a sprout.

Eric Carle meets Chicken Soup with Rice in this joyful dance through the year one month at a time, sure to whirl young readers right along with it.

Time never passed so happily! From sledding and snowman-crafting in January to the New Year’s countdown in December, childlike drawings and jolly text describe each month of the year with all the fun that each one promises. This book works like a song: each month is a new verse, and readers transition into each new season by a chorus with a recurring refrain, which is riffed on throughout the year. 

Beloved author-illustrator Carter Higgins is back with all her quirky warmth in Round and Round the Year We Go, a book as fun to read aloud as it is to listen to and learn from. Story time is sure to provoke giggles, games, and ideas for your own seasonal escapades.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

The most popular work by Chile's Nobel Prize-winning poet, and the subject of Pablo Larraín's acclaimed feature film Neruda starring Gael García Bernal

A Penguin Classic

When it appeared in 1924, this work launched into the international spotlight a young and unknown poet whose writings would ignite a generation. W. S. Merwin’s incomparable translation faces the original Spanish text. Now in a black-spine Classics edition with an introduction by Cristina Garcia, this book stands as an essential collection that continues to inspire lovers and poets around the world.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

This sweet and spicy celebration of all things pickled is the perfect poetry picture book for foodies of all ages!

Open this book to savor a riotous rainbow of pickles. Not just green cucumbers, but yellow peppers, pink cabbages, and purple plums! Pickles come in all shapes and sizes—and so do the words that describe them. 

Punchy poetry and zesty art tell the story of a diverse community drawn together by their love of pickles. From kosher dills to sweet chutney to tangy kimchi, Pickle Words describes them all in this global tour of pickled foods. Back matter includes the science of pickling, an easy recipe for refrigerator pickles, and a visual glossary of pickles from around the world.

"Rupi Kaur is the Writer of the Decade." - The New Republic

#1 New York Times bestseller milk and honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity.

The book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. milk and honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.

Through haiku, a young boy narrates his family’s invigorating hike to the peak of Oregon’s South Sister volcano.

For centuries, haiku has offered meditation on the grace and majesty of nature. In Climbing the Volcano, old meets new as a young protagonist uses the poetic form to voice his wonder. Trekking uphill, the family encounters tiny toads, colorful butterflies, soaring birds of prey, and so much more to see, do, and feel. 

dormant volcano—
but at sunrise each day
it blazes

Climbing the Volcano is a call to adventure in the natural world, and a wonderful introduction to poetic forms. Young readers will be inspired to summit their own peaks and to find their own voices to share what they discover there. Whether you live in the shadow of a volcano, amid sprawling flatlands, or anywhere in between, Climbing the Volcano invites you to get out there and explore. 

Jennifer K. Mann’s breezy, childlike artwork harmonizes with Curtis Manley’s poetry to detail this mesmerizing Pacific Northwest journey.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

"A rich, thoughtful anthology exploring centuries of Black poetry." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"This deep and complex assemblage of Black poetry culminates in a joyful, painful, and emotionally rich experience." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"An eclectic mix of Black experiences fills this unmatched anthology that features both modern poets, such as Nikki Giovanni and Ibi Zoboi, and 'the brilliant Black poets who are now ancestors'... A fresh canon for poetry studies."--ALA Booklist (starred review)

"An excellent collection of poetry that is an insightful read on the Black experience"--School and Library Journal

Starring thirty-seven poets, with contributions from acclaimed authors, including Kwame Alexander, Ibi Zoboi, and Nikki Giovanni, this breathtaking Black YA poetry anthology edited by National Book Award finalist Amber McBride, Taylor Byas, and Erica Martin celebrates Black poetry, folklore, and culture.

Come, claim your wings.

Lift your life above the earth,

return to the land of your father's birth.

What exactly is it to be Black in America?

Well, for some, it's learning how to morph the hatred placed by others into love for oneself; for others, it's unearthing the strength it takes to continue to hold one's swagger when multitudinous factors work to make Black lives crumble. For some, it's gathering around the kitchen table as Grandma tells the story of Anansi the spider, while for others it's grinning from ear to ear while eating auntie's spectacular 7Up cake.

Black experiences and traditions are complex, striking, and vast--they stretch longer than the Nile and are four times as deep--and carry more than just unimaginable pain--there is also joy.

Featuring an all-star group of thirty-seven powerful poetic voices, including such luminaries as Kwame Alexander, James Baldwin, Ibi Zoboi, Audre Lorde, Nikki Giovanni, and Gwendolyn Brooks, this riveting anthology depicts the diversity of the Black experience by fostering a conversation about race, faith, heritage, and resilience between fresh poets and the literary ancestors that came before them.

Edited by Taylor Byas, Erica Martin, and Coretta Scott King New Talent Award winner Amber McBride, Poemhood will simultaneously highlight the duality and nuance at the crux of so many Black experiences with poetry being the psalm constantly playing.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection pick!

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND INCLUDED IN THE BOOKLIST TOP 10 ART BOOKS FOR YOUTH! Perfect for fans of A B to Jay-Z and Nikki Giovanni who are seeking modern hip hop poetry books for kids.

Our consensus is Hip Hop Speaks to Children is the most essential poetry purchase to make this year.

The poetry is enough.

The illustrations are enough.

The CD is enough.

Together, this book is a treasure of which you cannot get enough.

We shall accomplish much this year. Children will be encouraged to put their words to poetry and beats. Teachers will be encouraged to allow the artists to speak to children.--Diane Chen, School Library Journal blog "Practically Paradise"

Hip Hop Speaks to Children is a celebration of poetry with a beat.

Poetry can have both a rhyme and a rhythm. Sometimes it is obvious; sometimes it is hidden. But either way, make no mistake, poetry is as vibrant and exciting as it gets. And when you find yourself clapping your hands or tapping your feet, you know you've found poetry with a beat!

Like Poetry Speaks to Children, the New York Times Bestselling classic poetry book and CD that started it all, Hip Hop Speaks to Children is meant to be the beginning of a journey of discovery.

READ more than 50 remarkable poems and songs!

HEAR poetry's rhymes and rhythms from Queen Latifah to Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes to A Tribe Called Quest and more! * Also hear part of Martin Luther Kind's original "I Have a Dream" speech, followed by the remarkable live performance of the speech by Nikki Giovanni, Oni Lasana and Val Gray Ward. * The Hip Hop Speaks to Children CD contains more than 30 performances, either by the artists who created them, or as unique interpretations by admiring poets and artists.

DISCOVER Langston Hughes's elegant gospel "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," A Tribe Called Quest's playful "Ham 'N' Eggs," Sterling A. Brown's hard-luck "Long Track Blues," Gwendolyn Brooks's wake-up call "We Real Cool," Kanye West's lovely "Hey Mama," and Martin Luther King Jr.'s awe-inspiring "I Have a Dream."

This is a collection of rhymes and rhythms unlike any other poetry book!

Celebrate with remarkable poets, including:

• Eloise Greenfield
• Mos Def
• Lucille Clifton
• Oscar Brown Jr.
• Tupac Shakur
• Maya Angelou
• Queen Latifah
• Nikki Grimes
• Walter Dean Myers
• Common
• and, of course, Nikki Giovanni

Poems Include:

• Ego Tripping
• Rapper's Delight
• The Negro Speaks of Rivers
• Hey Mama
• Ham 'N' Eggs
• Everything Is Everything
• Ladies First

MORE PRAISE FOR HIP HOP SPEAKS TO CHILDREN

"With its archival recordings of poems read by the poets themselves, [Hip Hop] reminds everyone that poetry springs from an oral tradition."--Publishers Weekly

"This is the way to get children interested in reading and loving poetry. ...A great book for both teachers and parents."--Valerie Lewis, owner of Hicklebee's children's bookstore

"The poems, the artwork, the CD...all complement each other to create a wonderful experience."--Becky Laney, Becky Laney's Books blog

"Love this book. I think it is a K-8 must-have for classrooms and libraries. Like I said it is packed and it may be (at first) intimidating to young readers. But, once they hear some of the audio, spend time with the illustrations, and experience some of the poetry, I think it will become a favorite."--Franki Sibberson, A Year of Reading blog

"Hip Hop Speaks to Children is a wonderfully composed collection of poems from writers like Eloise Greenfield to late rapper and poet, Tupac Shakur. ...Whether you read poetry or you hear it in a rap song, Giovanni's genius endeavor will inspire children of all ages to have fun while listening to poetry. Rap is poetry, right?"--Amy Bowllan, Amy Bowllan's Blog (a School Library Journal Blog)

"I highly recommend this one for all collections. If the title didn't include the word "children" it'd be an excellent book all the way to high school. My coworkers and I are already talking about doing a Hip Hop poetry story time for our elementary school kids."--Jennifer Rothschild, Biblio File blog

Winner of the American Indian Youth Literature Award
Printz Honor Winner
National Book Award Longlist
TIME 10 Best YA and Children's Books of the Year
NPR Best of the Year
Shelf Awareness Best of the Year
Publishers Weekly Big Indie Books of Fall
Amazon Best Book of the Month
AICL Best YA Books of the Year
CSMCL Best Multicultural Children's Books of the Year

"Stirring.. Raw and moving."--TIME

"Beautiful imagery and with words that soar and scald."--The Buffalo News

"Easily one of the best books to be published in 2020. The kind of book bound to save lives."--LitHub

"A powerful narrative about identity and belonging."--Paste Magazine

★ "Timely and important."--Booklist, starred review

★ "Searing yet dryly funny."--The Bulletin, starred review

★ "Exceptional."--Shelf-Awareness, starred review

★ "Captivating."--School Library Journal, starred review

The term "Apple" is a slur in Native communities across the country. It's for someone supposedly "red on the outside, white on the inside."

In Apple (Skin to the Core), Eric Gansworth tells his story, the story of his family--of Onondaga among Tuscaroras--of Native folks everywhere. From the horrible legacy of the government boarding schools, to a boy watching his siblings leave and return and leave again, to a young man fighting to be an artist who balances multiple worlds.

Eric shatters that slur and reclaims it in verse and prose and imagery that truly lives up to the word heartbreaking.

A unique and artful blend of poetry, science, and activism, this picture book shows how city dwellers can intervene so that nature can work her magic. Perfect for fans of The Curious Garden and Harlem Grown.

In Oslo, Norway: citizens create a honeybee highway that stretches from one side of the city to the other, offering flowerpots, resting spots, bee boxes, and beehives--even water fountains--every eight hundred feet.

In the Bronx, New York: a community rallies to clean their river and cheers at the return of the long-lost beaver population.

In Busselton, Australia: people make a rope bridge that swings high above speeding cars, creating a safe path for tree-hopping possums and squirrels alike.

Through a mix of lyrical poems, real-life success stories, and bouquet-bright artwork, The City Sings Green explores the environmental impact of humans and showcases the many ways that we can rewild cities across the globe. Together, we can welcome nature back!

Detailed back matter includes sources, links to explore, ways to help, and recommended reading.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is internationally renowned as a pioneering master of the macabre. He is regarded as one of the world's great short story writers as well as a great lyric poet, and is credited with inventing the detective story and the modern gothic horror tale. He has been an important influence on many major American and European writers including William Faulkner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Baudelaire, H.P. Lovecraft, and William Butler Yeats, among many others.
Poe's poetry, which is collected in this volume, is more personal than his prose. The themes of love, death, and despair which recur throughout reflect the anguish he suffered in his own troubled life. "Annabel Lee" is a haunting lament to his young wife, Virginia, who died of tuberculosis. "The Bells" is an eerie and melancholy meditation which recreates with brilliant musical language the hypnotic, funereal aura of ringing bells. "The Raven" is a comic tour de force in which the protagonist turns his strange visitor into a symbol of his own sorrow and loss. Poe's best poems remain some of the most popular and technically accomplished in the English language.
This book features a deluxe cover, ribbon marker, top stain, and decorative endpaper with a name plate.

A poetic picture book biography about blind Black poet Myra Viola Wilds, written by the author of Brown: The Many Shades of Love

What dreams do you carry? Myra Viola Wilds dreamed of opportunity. She left her home in rural Kentucky for the city, learned to read and to write, and became a dressmaker. She hand-stitched gorgeous gowns. She worked so hard she lost her eyesight, and her world went dark. But those well-loved stitches turned into words, and one night Myra woke in the middle of the night and wrote a poem she called "Sunshine." She kept writing. She wrote the lush green, sweet-corn yellow, cerulean blue, sunshine-y world from memory, collecting her poems into a book called Thoughts of Idle Hours, published in 1915.

Written in Wilds's style, this lyrical, gorgeously illustrated picture book biography celebrates this little-known poet and includes a biography that provides context to her life--the Great Migration, Jim Crow segregation--as well a photograph and a small selection of her poems.

In the vein of poetry collections like Milk and Honey and Light Filters In, this compilation of short, powerful poems from Instagram sensation Trista Mateer shines beauty and insight into relationships, love, growing up, and learning to cope.

This hardcover collection features completely new material, plus some fan favorites from Trista's account. Filled with colored original artwork from Jess Cruickshank, this powerful collection unpacks how to heal from trauma, explores love in many forms, and empowers you to love yourself and take up the space you deserve.

BIG BANG THEORY
what happens if we collide?
will it feel like atoms bursting?
will it burn like light?
will your hands feel the same as other people's hands?
will the whole world change if we touch?
do you want to find out?

"Enthralling" –Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Kheiriyeh transforms a distant and revered figure into a warm, bright focal point in this biography" –School Library Journal, starred review

“Be a friend to everyone.” Rumi’s words are needed now more than ever. A picture book biography of the renowned Persian poet that introduces children to Rumi’s life and teachings. 

Even the greatest poet was once a child. And so it was with Rumi. When he was young he was enchanted by birds and books. He later became a scholar, but it was the loss of his best friend, Shams, that inspired Rumi to his most important realization: Love is in us and everywhere.

The Persian mystic and poet Rumi is one of the best known and most widely read poets in the world. The renowned illustrator Rashin Kheiriyeh herself comes from Iran. With this picture book she creates a touching memorial to Rumi's wisdom and warmth. The strong colors and ornamental details transport us to the Persian Empire in the 13th century. Yet Rumi's story and his poetry are timeless.

Written by award-winning Iranian-American artist Rashin Kheiriyeh,this narrative nonfiction picture book has been published to honor his life and the 750th anniversary of his death.

Includes backmatter on Rumi as well as an author's note.

New York Times Bestseller 

Stop—and even reverse!—age-related weight gain and muscle loss with the first-ever weight-loss plan specifically designed to shrink your belly, extend your life, and create your healthiest self at mid-life and beyond.

You don’t have to gain weight as you age. That’s the simple yet revolutionary promise of The Whole Body Reset, which uncovers why standard diet and exercise advice stops working for us as we approach midlife—and reveals how simple changes to the way we eat can halt, and even reverse, age-related weight gain and muscle loss.

The Whole Body Reset presents stunning new evidence about the power of “protein timing” for people at midlife—research that blows away current government guidelines, refutes the myth of slowing metabolisms and “inevitable” weight gain, and changes the way people in their mid-forties and older should think about food. The Whole Body Reset explains in simple, inspiring terms exactly how our bodies change with age, and how eating to accommodate those changes can make us respond to exercise as if we were twenty to thirty years younger.

Developed by AARP, tested by a panel of more than 100 AARP employees, and approved by an international board of doctors, nutritionists, and fitness experts, The Whole Body Reset doesn’t use diet phases, eating windows, calorie restriction, or other trendy gimmicks. Its six simple secrets and scores of recipes are easy to follow, designed for real people living in the real world. A dining guide even shows how to follow this program in popular restaurants from McDonald’s to Starbucks to Olive Garden. And best of all: It works!

New York Times Bestseller 

Stop—and even reverse!—age-related weight gain and muscle loss with the first-ever weight-loss plan specifically designed to shrink your belly, extend your life, and create your healthiest self at mid-life and beyond.

You don’t have to gain weight as you age. That’s the simple yet revolutionary promise of The Whole Body Reset, which uncovers why standard diet and exercise advice stops working for us as we approach midlife—and reveals how simple changes to the way we eat can halt, and even reverse, age-related weight gain and muscle loss.

The Whole Body Reset presents stunning new evidence about the power of “protein timing” for people at midlife—research that blows away current government guidelines, refutes the myth of slowing metabolisms and “inevitable” weight gain, and changes the way people in their mid-forties and older should think about food. The Whole Body Reset explains in simple, inspiring terms exactly how our bodies change with age, and how eating to accommodate those changes can make us respond to exercise as if we were twenty to thirty years younger.

Developed by AARP, tested by a panel of more than 100 AARP employees, and approved by an international board of doctors, nutritionists, and fitness experts, The Whole Body Reset doesn’t use diet phases, eating windows, calorie restriction, or other trendy gimmicks. Its six simple secrets and scores of recipes are easy to follow, designed for real people living in the real world. A dining guide even shows how to follow this program in popular restaurants from McDonald’s to Starbucks to Olive Garden. And best of all: It works!

A captivating blend of reportage and personal narrative that explores the untold history of women’s exercise culture--from jogging and Jazzercise to Jane Fonda--and how women have parlayed physical strength into other forms of power.

For American women today, working out is as accepted as it is expected, fueling a multibillion-dollar fitness industrial complex. But it wasn’t always this way. For much of the twentieth century, sweating was considered unladylike and girls grew up believing physical exertion would cause their uterus to literally fall out. It was only in the sixties that, thanks to a few forward-thinking fitness pioneers, women began to move en masse.

In Let's Get Physical, journalist Danielle Friedman reveals the fascinating hidden history of contemporary women’s fitness culture, chronicling in vivid, cinematic prose how exercise evolved from a beauty tool pitched almost exclusively as a way to “reduce” into one millions have harnessed as a path to mental, emotional, and physical well-being. 

Let’s Get Physical reclaims these forgotten origin stories—and shines a spotlight on the trailblazers who led the way. Each chapter uncovers the birth of a fitness movement that laid the foundation for working out today: the radical post-war pitch for women to break a sweat in their living rooms, the invention of barre in the “Swinging Sixties,” the promise of jogging as liberation in the seventies, the meteoric rise of aerobics and weight-training in the eighties, the explosion of yoga in the nineties, and the ongoing push for a more socially inclusive fitness culture—one that celebrates every body. 

Ultimately, it tells the story of how women discovered the joy of physical strength and competence—and how, by moving together to transform fitness from a privilege into a right, we can create a more powerful sisterhood.

Congratulations, you are about to get younger!
 
Dr. Henry Lodge provides the science. Chris Crowley provides the motivation. And through their New York Times bestselling program, you’ll discover how to put off 70 percent of the normal problems of aging—weakness, sore joints, bad balance—and eliminate 50 percent of serious illness and injury. Plus, prominent neurologist Allan Hamilton now explains how following “Harry’s Rules” for diet, exercise, and staying emotionally connected directly affects your brain—all the way down to the cellular level. The message is simple: Learn to train for the next third of your life, and you’ll have a ball.

 
 

From renowned experts Megan Ramos and Dr. Jason Fung: A transformative approach to women's health and well-being that gives readers the tools to reclaim their health sustainably.

"Essential reading for any woman wanting to improve her metabolic health and make sense of her body, hormones, and sustainable fasting strategies. "--Cynthia Thurlow, author of Intermittent Fasting Transformation

"Intermittent fasting has changed my body, mind, and life. I am truly grateful and humbled by humans like Megan who are sharing the truth about health."--Raven-Symoné

Struggling with your metabolism and hormone health? Disappointed by diets that don't provide sustainable, long term results? Sick of feeling tired and stressed all the time?

Megan Ramos was in the same position when she discovered intermittent fasting at the clinic where she was a researcher. After suffering from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, PCOS, and type 2 diabetes, she harnessed the power of fasting to reverse these conditions, lose over 80 pounds, and achieve long-lasting health. Today, as the co-founder of The Fasting Method with Dr. Jason Fung, she has helped over 20,000 people, primarily women, improve their wellbeing through intermittent fasting.

In The Essential Guide to Intermittent Fasting for Women, Ramos shares:
 

• Easy-to-use fasting protocols that can be incorporated into your busy schedule
• Information on when and how to eat to feel full and energized
• How intermittent fasting can support your health through fertility struggles, PCOS, perimenopause, and menopause
• How balancing your hormones and stress levels can help you avoid weight gain and depression

Designed specifically for women of all ages and their unique needs, this go-to guide provides you with the steps to take control of your health--for good.

 

Meeting the demands of your busy life may leave little time for you to focus on maintaining your personal well-being. But it is important to remember that each part of you-mind, body, and emotions-serves a purpose in God's exciting plan for your future. Embracing a healthier lifestyle will help you fully experience all the good things He has in store for you. 
Joyce Meyer, #1 New York Times bestselling author, understands that modern life is hectic and has created a practical plan for achieving good health, one day at a time. Her easy-to-use 12-Key Plan for Good Health will help you develop life-changing habits for a healthier lifestyle, no matter what your current level of health. By following her simple, yet effective tips on eating, exercise, rest, and stress management, you will unlock a new level of well-being, empowering you to live the fulfilling life you were meant to lead.

Derived from material previously published in Look Great, Feel Great.


 

From world-class marathoner and 4-time Olympian Shalane Flanagan and chef Elyse Kopecky comes a whole foods, flavor-forward cookbook--and New York Times bestseller--that proves food can be indulgent and nourishing at the same time. Finally here's a cookbook for runners that shows fat is essential for flavor and performance and that counting calories, obsessing over protein, and restrictive dieting does more harm than good.

Packed with more than 100 recipes for every part of your day, mind-blowing nutritional wisdom, and inspiring stories from two fitness-crazed women that became fast friends more than 15 years ago, Run Fast. Eat Slow. has all the bases covered. You'll find no shortage of delicious meals, satisfying snacks, thirst-quenching drinks, and wholesome treats. Fan favorites include Can't Beet Me Smoothie, Arugula Cashew Pesto, High-Altitude Bison Meatballs, Superhero Muffins, Kale Radicchio Salad with Farro, and Double Chocolate Teff Cookies.

The innovators behind The Ready State and the movement bible Becoming a Supple Leopard present 10 practices proven to enhance mobility, make you feel energetic and alive, and, like a good 401(K), prepare your body for whatever comes its way in the future.

After decades spent working with pro-athletes, Olympians, and Navy Seals, mobility pioneers Kelly and Juliet Starrett began thinking about the physical well-being of the rest of us. What makes a durable human? How do we continue to feel great and function well as we age? And how do we counteract the effects of technology-dependence, sedentary living, and other modern ways of life on our body’s natural need for activity? Our bodies, after all, were built to move.

The answers lie in a simple formula for basic mobility maintenance: 10 tests + 10 physical practices = 10 ways to make your body work better.

Organized around ten assessments and ten physical practices that anyone can do, Built to Move is designed to improve the way your body feels—less stiffness! fewer aches and pain!— and boost the overall quality of your life, no matter how you spend your time. The book offers:

 

• Easy mobilization practices to increase range of motion and avoid injury
• Uncomplicated guidelines for improving nutrition and sleep
• Breathing strategies to help you move more freely and manage stress and pain
• Advice on easy ways to change sedentary habits and integrate more movement into your daily life.

This is the first body book written for exercisers and nonexercisers alike. It’s full of foundational wisdom for everyone from professional athletes to gym haters and everyone in between. Built to Move introduces readers to a set of simple principles and practices that are undemanding enough to work into any busy schedule, lead to greater ease of movement, better health, and a happier life doing whatever it is you love to do—and want to continue doing as long as you live. This book is your game plan for the long game.

After collaborating on two major books featured as PBS specials, Super Brain and Super Genes, Chopra and Tanzi now tackle the issue of lifelong health and heightened immunity.

We are in the midst of a new revolution. 

For over twenty-five years Deepak Chopra, M.D. and Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D. have revolutionized medicine and how we understand our minds and our bodies--Chopra, the leading expert in the field of integrative medicine; Tanzi, the pioneering neuroscientist and discoverer of genes that cause Alzheimer's Disease. After reaching millions of people around the world through their collaborations on the hugely successful Super Brain and Super Genes books and public television programs, the New York Times bestselling authors now present a groundbreaking, landmark work on the supreme importance of our immune system in relation to our lifelong health.

In the face of environmental toxins, potential epidemics, superbugs, and the accelerated aging process, the significance of achieving optimum health has never been more crucial--and the burden to achieve it now rests on individuals making the right lifestyle choices every day.

That means you. You--not doctors, not pharmaceutical companies--are ultimately responsible for your own health.

Chopra and Tanzi want to help readers make the best decisions possible when it comes to creating a holistic and transformative health plan for life. In The Healing Self they not only push the boundaries of the intellect to bring readers the newest research and insights on the mind-body, mind-gene, and mind-immunity connections, but they offer a cutting-edge, seven-day action plan, which outlines the key tools everyone needs to develop their own effective and personalized path to self-healing.

In addition, The Healing Self closely examines how we can best manage chronic stress and inflammation, which are immerging as the primary detriments of well-being. Moreover, Chopra and Tanzi turn their attention to a host of chronic disorders such as hypertension, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimer's Disease, known to take years and sometimes decades to develop before the first symptoms appear. Contemporary medical systems aren't set to attend to prolonged low-grade chronic inflammation or the everyday infections and stresses that take their toll on the body and can lead to disease, aging, and death. Thus, learning the secrets of self-healing is not only urgent but mandatory for optimum health. The Healing Self then is a call to action, a proven, strategic program that will arm readers with the information they need to protect themselves and achieve lifelong wellness.

There is a new revolution occurring in health today. That revolution is you.

A compilation of 200 simple, delicious recipes using all-natural ingredients; meal plans; time-saving tips; and advice that will take the guesswork out of dinner, from the creator of the popular Wellness Mama website. 

With six kids, a popular blog, and no free time, Katie Wells, knows firsthand how difficult it is to cook a healthy, homemade dinner every night. Faced with her own health challenges, and also concerned about the frightening statistics on the future health of her children’s generation, Katie began to evaluate the foods she was eating and feeding to her family. She became determined to find a way to create and serve meals that were wholesome, easy to prepare, budget-friendly, and family approved. 

The recipes and practical advice Katie offers in The Wellness Mama Cookbook will help you eliminate processed foods and move toward more healthy, home-cooked meals that are easily prepared—most in thirty minutes or less. The recipes focus on whole foods that are free of grains and refined sugars and without harmful fats, but are still delicious and full of flavor. With a variety of slow-cooker and one-pot meals, light lunches, dinners, and desserts, you’ll be eating better in every way in no time at all. Recipes include Sesame Chicken with Sugar Snap Peas, Sweet Potato Crusted Quiche Lorraine, Beef and Zucchini Stir Fry, and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies, as well as recipes for bone broths, fermented foods, and super food drinks and smoothies. Katie also shares pantry-stocking advice, two weeks of meal plans for at home and on-the-go, shopping lists, and more. This is the ultimate cookbook that readers need to incorporate healthy eating knowledge into their daily practices.

Voted the Greatest Runner of All Time by Runner's World in 2013, Emil Zátopek redefined modern running training techniques--with remarkable results. He is famed for setting a raft of world records and winning the Olympic ten thousand meters in London in 1948, followed by the remarkable and unprecedented wins of the five thousand meters, ten thousand meters, and marathon four years later in Helsinki. His story, however, goes way beyond races and results.

From a lowly factory worker, “the Czech Locomotive” became a global hero. But at a time of political instability Zátopek risked everything for the love of his friends and country and soon found himself cast adrift into political exile.

At its heart, this is a love story, as Emil courts and marries Dana, a promising javelin thrower. Born on the same day, they end up winning Olympic gold medals within half an hour of each other. With the unprecedented involvement of Dana, award-winning Times author Rick Broadbent has gained unique access to a dramatic past involving blood, guns, and the love that sustained beatings by Soviet henchmen and the cruelest twists of fate.

With traces of Chariots of Fire and Laura Hillenbrand's New York Times bestseller and film Unbroken, this is both a beautiful love story and a landmark tale of hope and strength in the face of crushing injustices.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The astonishing and hugely entertaining story that completely changed the way we run. An epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt?

“Equal parts quest, physiology treatise, and running history.... The climactic race reads like a sprint.... It simply makes you want to run.” —Outside Magazine

Isolated by Mexico's deadly Copper Canyons, the blissful Tarahumara Indians have honed the ability to run hundreds of miles without rest or injury. In a riveting narrative, award-winning journalist and often-injured runner Christopher McDougall sets out to discover their secrets. In the process, he takes his readers from science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-growing numbers of ultra-runners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to a climactic race in the Copper Canyons that pits America’s best ultra-runners against the tribe. McDougall’s incredible story will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that you, indeed all of us, were born to run.

Look for Born to Run 2, out now!

From the best-selling author and renowned coach duo from Born to Run, a fully illustrated, practical guide to running for everyone from amateurs to seasoned runners, about how to eat, race, and train like the world's best

Whether you're ramping up for a race or recuperating from an injury, Born to Run 2 is a holistic program for runners of every stripe that centers on seven key themes: food, fitness, form, footwear, focus, fun, and family. 

The guide contains: 
 

• On-the run recipes for race-ready nutrition
• Training regimen to help get you in shape and achieve your running goals
• Corrective drills to perfect your form
• Helpful shoe recommendations
• Advice about how to bring more joy into running
• Suggestions for finding a running community

Christopher McDougall and Eric Orton bring all the elements together into an integrated action plan—the 90-Day Run Free training schedule—that provides everything you need to prepare for a mile-long fun run or a 100-mile ultramarathon. Full of helpful illustrations and full-color photos of the iconic first Copper Canyons race, Born to Run 2 is the perfect training companion for anyone who wants to get inspired about the sport again and learn the proven techniques to run smoother, lighter, and swifter.

From the author of the bestseller Eat and Run, a thrilling new memoir about his grueling, exhilarating, and immensely inspiring 46-day run to break the speed record for the Appalachian Trail.

Scott Jurek is one of the world's best known and most beloved ultrarunners. Renowned for his remarkable endurance and speed, accomplished on a vegan diet, he's finished first in nearly all of ultrarunning's elite events over the course of his career. But after two decades of racing, training, speaking, and touring, Jurek felt an urgent need to discover something new about himself. He embarked on a wholly unique challenge, one that would force him to grow as a person and as an athlete: breaking the speed record for the Appalachian Trail. North is the story of the 2,189-mile journey that nearly shattered him.

When he set out in the spring of 2015, Jurek anticipated punishing terrain, forbidding weather, and inevitable injuries. He would have to run nearly 50 miles a day, every day, for almost seven weeks. He knew he would be pushing himself to the limit, that comfort and rest would be in short supply -- but he couldn't have imagined the physical and emotional toll the trip would exact, nor the rewards it would offer.

With his wife, Jenny, friends, and the kindness of strangers supporting him, Jurek ran, hiked, and stumbled his way north, one white blaze at a time. A stunning narrative of perseverance and personal transformation, North is a portrait of a man stripped bare on the most demanding and transcendent effort of his life. It will inspire runners and non-runners alike to keep striving for their personal best.
 

The best-selling author of Born to Run now travels to the Mediterranean, where he discovers that the secrets of ancient Greek heroes are still alive and well on the island of Crete, and ready to be unleashed in the muscles and minds of casual athletes and aspiring heroes everywhere.

After running an ultramarathon through the Copper Canyons of Mexico, Christopher McDougall finds his next great adventure on the razor-sharp mountains of Crete, where a band of Resistance fighters in World War II plotted the daring abduction of a German general from the heart of the Nazi occupation. How did a penniless artist, a young shepherd, and a playboy poet believe they could carry out such a remarkable feat of strength and endurance, smuggling the general past thousands of Nazi pursuers, with little more than their own wits and courage to guide them?

McDougall makes his way to the island to find the answer and retrace their steps, experiencing firsthand the extreme physical challenges the Resistance fighters and their local allies faced. On Crete, the birthplace of the classical Greek heroism that spawned the likes of Herakles and Odysseus, McDougall discovers the tools of the hero--natural movement, extraordinary endurance, and efficient nutrition. All of these skills, McDougall learns, are still practiced in far-flung pockets throughout the world today.

More than a mystery of remarkable people and cunning schemes, Natural Born Heroes is a fascinating investigation into the lost art of the hero, taking us from the streets of London at midnight to the beaches of Brazil at dawn, from the mountains of Colorado to McDougall's own backyard in Pennsylvania, all places where modern-day athletes are honing ancient skills so they're ready for anything.

Just as Born to Run inspired readers to get off the treadmill, out of their shoes, and into the natural world, Natural Born Heroes will inspire them to leave the gym and take their fitness routine to nature--to climb, swim, skip, throw, and jump their way to their own heroic feats.

Join Henry, one of the stars of the IMAX film Superpower Dogs, as he emBARKS on a journey to become an avalanche rescue dog in this gripping true story, perfect for fans of Max!

In Whistler, British Columbia, dogs can be found riding chairlifts, perched on skiers' shoulders, and even descending from helicopters--all in the race against time to save people caught in the path of an avalanche. Meet Henry, a lovable border collie, and the team of dogs and human partners he works with in the beautiful and sometimes dangerous mountains.

Through the action-packed narrative, informative and engaging interstitials, and eight pages of stunning full-color photographs, young readers will experience real-life rescues and gain a new appreciation for the bond between dogs and humans.

 

Always Albert hopes for rain. On rainy days Mrs. Crabtree takes him with her for taxi rides. So much better than walks. 
One day -- brilliantly sunny, for a surprise -- Albert hops a taxi alone. More than one taxi, actually. 
You will never guess where he goes!

Discusses the history, development, habits and care of the dog known as the boxer. Includes photo diagram and general facts about dogs.

Children Will Take the Lead with Fun & Easy Dog Training Techniques

Every child wants a dog, yet not every child--or even grown-up!--is equipped to take on the responsibilities that come with owning a dog. But with the help of Vanessa Estrada Marin, the director of a sought-after dog-training program for kids, your child will have fun being in charge!

Dog Training for Kids breaks down lessons and tutorials in simple steps and easy-to-follow instructions. Kids will have everything they need to be caring and responsible dog owners:

 

• Basic Training Lessons including Stopping Unnecessary Barking, Potty & House Training, Obedience, Leash Training, Crate Training

 

• Essential Commands including Sit, Stay, Heel, Drop It

 

• Clever Tricks including Roll Over, Speak, High Five, and Leap

 

• Super Fun Games including Obstacle Course, Frisbee, Tunnel

 

• And More -- Equipment List, How to Train Your Dog to Be Calm at the Vet, How to Dog Proof Your Home

Whether young dog lovers will be raising puppies, adopting rescues, or getting their first dogs, this all-in-one book will give them the confidence and knowledge to properly train, take care of, and establish a lasting bond with their well-behaved furry friends.

Direct sequel to the "New York Times" and "USA Today" bestselling "A Dog's Purpose" by W. Bruce Cameron Buddy is a good dog. After searching for his purpose through several eventful lives, Buddy is sure that he has found and fulfilled it. Yet as he watches curious baby Clarity get into dangerous mischief, he is certain that this little girl is very much in need of a dog of her own. When Buddy is reborn, he realizes that he has a new destiny. He's overjoyed when he is adopted by Clarity, now a vibrant but troubled teenager. When they are suddenly separated, Buddy despairs--who will take care of his girl? A charming and heartwarming story of hope, love, and unending devotion, "A Dog's Journey" asks the question: Do we really take care of our pets, or do they take care of us? More than just another endearing dog tale, "A Dog's Journey" is the moving story of unwavering loyalty and a love that crosses all barriers.

Malcolm Gladwell focuses on "minor geniuses" and idiosyncratic behavior to illuminate the ways all of us organize experience in this "delightful" (Bloomberg News) collection of writings from The New Yorker.

What is the difference between choking and panicking? Why are there dozens of varieties of mustard-but only one variety of ketchup? What do football players teach us about how to hire teachers? What does hair dye tell us about the history of the 20th century? 
In the past decade, Malcolm Gladwell has written three books that have radically changed how we understand our world and ourselves: The Tipping Point; Blink; and Outliers. Now, in What the Dog Saw, he brings together, for the first time, the best of his writing from The New Yorker over the same period. 
Here is the bittersweet tale of the inventor of the birth control pill, and the dazzling inventions of the pasta sauce pioneer Howard Moscowitz. Gladwell sits with Ron Popeil, the king of the American kitchen, as he sells rotisserie ovens, and divines the secrets of Cesar Millan, the "dog whisperer" who can calm savage animals with the touch of his hand. He explores intelligence tests and ethnic profiling and "hindsight bias" and why it was that everyone in Silicon Valley once tripped over themselves to hire the same college graduate. 
"Good writing," Gladwell says in his preface, "does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head." What the Dog Saw is yet another example of the buoyant spirit and unflagging curiosity that have made Malcolm Gladwell our most brilliant investigator of the hidden extraordinary.

Discover how blindness and a bond between dog and man saved lives and brought hope during one of America's darkest days.

For most dogs, a visit to a dog park is a great experience filled with chances to interact with other dogs and get some exercise. But not all dogs (not to mention their owners) have a great experience every time. So what can you do increase the chance that going to the dog park will be safe and fun for your dog? Cheryl provides you with the information you need to know including: * The design features a well-planned park should have. * The four key behaviors your dog needs to know to thrive in a dog park. * Dog park etiquette - for both humans and dogs. * How to evaluate your dog's temperament to determine if he is dog-park ready. * How to read canine body language to anticipate and prevent problems. Anyone who takes their dog to a dog park - especially those who may have had some negative experiences - should benefit from reading this book. For you trainers who are asked by your clients about the pros and cons of dog parks, this book should be on your recommended reading list.

A “transformative,”* inspiring book with the power to change the way we understand and communicate with our dogs.
 
Few people are more qualified to speak about the abilities and potential of dogs than Jennifer Arnold, who for twenty years has trained service dogs for people with physical disabilities and special needs. Through her unique understanding of dogs’ intelligence, sensitivity, and extrasensory skills, Arnold has developed an exemplary training method that is based on kindness and encouragement rather than fear and submission, and her results are extraordinary.

To Jennifer Arnold, dogs are neither wolves in need of a pack leader nor babies in need of coddling; rather, they are extremely trusting beings attuned to their owners’ needs, and they aim to please. Stories from Arnold’s life and the lives of the dogs who were her greatest teachers provide convincing and compelling testimony to her choice teaching method and make Through a Dog’s Eyes an unforgettable book that will forever change your relationship with your dog.
 
*Publishers Weekly

In this powerful, soul-searching memoir, beautifully written in the vein of A Pack of Two and Wild, animal behaviorist Dr. Patricia McConnell recounts for the first time the compelling story of her dark past, memories of which are triggered by a troubled dog named Will.

World-renowned as a source of science and soul, Patricia McConnell combines brilliant insights into canine behavior—gained from her work with aggressive and fearful dogs—with heartwarming stories of her own dogs and their life on the farm. Now, she reveals that it wasn’t just the dogs who had serious problems. For decades Dr. McConnell secretly grappled with her own guilt and fear, which were rooted in the harrowing traumas of her youth.

Patricia is forced to face her past by her love for a young Border Collie named Will, whose frequent, unpredictable outbreaks of fear and fury shake Patricia to her core. In order to save Will from this dangerous behavior, she must find her own will to heal, and along the way learn that will power by itself is not enough.

Interweaving enlightening stories of her clients’ dogs with tales of her deepening bond with Will, Patricia recounts her fight to reclaim her life. Hopeful and inspiring, the redemptive message of her journey is that, while trauma changes our brains and the past casts a long shadow, healing, for both people and dogs, is possible through hard work, compassion, and mutual devotion.

Mamiachi & Me is a lyrical and empowering picture book written by Jolene and Dakota Gutiérrez and illustrated by Mirelle Ortega, winner of a Pura Belpré Illustrator Honor, about what it means to be a mariachi in an all‑female band.

Today’s the day! Rosa will take the stage next to her mami and play along with her popular mariachi band. But as they fasten the shiny botonaduras and tie the moños on their charra suits, Rosa begins to worry. What if the audience doesn’t like her? Is she ready to perform?

With her mamiachi and madrinas by her side, Rosa’s stage fright is soothed away by the sound of trumpets, guitars, and violins. Centering on the power of sisterhood, community, and music, the warm and lively text by mother-and-son writing duo Jolene and Dakota Gutiérrez—joined by Mirelle Ortega’s beautiful illustrations—provides a unique perspective to the male-dominated world of mariachi.

Back matter includes additional context on the history of the beloved Mexican tradition and the rise of all-female mariachi groups, as well as a glossary, a bibliography, further reading, and a fun, detailed look at a mariachi’s signature charro suit!

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2024

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST THRILLER OF 2024

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST CRIME NOVEL OF 2024

PEOPLE MAGAZINE’S #1 BOOK OF THE YEAR

ONE OF NPR’S “BOOKS WE LOVE” 2024

ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S “100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2024”

"A long novel that at first is hard to put down. By page 200, impossible." —Stephen King

“Extraordinary . . . Reminds me of Donna Tartt’s 1992 debut, The Secret History . . . I was so thoroughly submerged in a rich fictional world, that for hours I barely came up for air.” —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, NPR

“This expertly paced thriller …has the kineticism of a well-crafted miniseries.” —The New Yorker

When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR * SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE * KIRKUS PRIZE WINNER * A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

In development as a feature film to be produced by Steven Spielberg * A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times Book Review, LA Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, TIME, and more.

"Genius"--The Atlantic * "A masterpiece that will help redefine one of the classics of American literature, while also being a major achievement on its own."--Chicago Tribune * "A provocative, enlightening literary work of art."--The Boston Globe * "Everett's most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful."--The New York Times

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river's banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin...), Jim's agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.

Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a "literary icon" (Oprah Daily), and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime, James is destined to be a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.

After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there’s no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty.

Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust.

Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything.

They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth.

But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath. 

The Empyrean series is best enjoyed in order.
Reading Order:
Book #1 Fourth Wing
Book #2 Iron Flame
Book #3 Onyx Storm

Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner
New York Times bestseller
"Timely and timeless." -Jacqueline Woodson
"Important and deeply moving." -John Green

Bestselling and award-winning author Renée Watson offers a powerful story about a girl striving for success in a world that too often seems like it's trying to break her.

Jade believes she must get out of her poor neighborhood if she's ever going to succeed. Her mother tells her to take advantage of every opportunity that comes her way. And Jade has: every day she rides the bus to the private school where she feels like an outsider, but where she has plenty of opportunities. But some opportunities she doesn't really welcome, like an invitation to join a mentorship program for "at-risk" girls. Just because her mentor is Black and graduated from the same high school doesn't mean she understands where Jade is coming from. She's tired of being singled out as someone who needs help, someone people want to fix. Jade wants to speak, to create, to express her joys and sorrows, her pain and her hope. Maybe there are some things she could show other women about understanding the world and finding ways to be real, to make a difference.

NPR's Best Books 
A New York Public Library Best Teen Book of the Year
Chicago Public Library's Best Books 
A School Library Journal Best Book 
Kirkus Reviews' Best Teen Books 
Josette Frank Award Winner

Patrisse Khan-Cullors' and asha bandele's instant New York Times bestseller, When They Call You a Terrorist is now adapted for the YA audience with photos and journal entries!

A movement that started with a hashtag--#BlackLivesMatter--on Twitter spread across the nation and then across the world.

From one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement comes a poetic memoir and reflection on humanity. Necessary and timely, Patrisse Khan-Cullors’ story asks us to remember that protest in the interest of the most vulnerable comes from love. Leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement have been called terrorists, a threat to America. But in truth, they are loving women whose life experiences have led them to seek justice for those victimized by the powerful. 

In this meaningful, empowering account of survival, strength, and resilience, Cullors and asha bandele seek to change the culture that declares innocent black life expendable.

Changing the Equation is a celebratory and inspiring look at some of the most important Black women in STEM.

Coretta Scott King Honor author Tonya Bolden explores Black women who have changed the world of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) in America. Including groundbreaking computer scientists, doctors, inventors, physicists, pharmacists, mathematicians, aviators, and many more, this book celebrates more than 50 women who have shattered the glass ceiling, defied racial discrimination, and pioneered in their fields.

In these profiles, young readers will find role models, inspirations, and maybe even reasons to be the STEM leaders of tomorrow. These stories help young readers to dream big and stay curious.

The book includes full-color and archival images, endnotes, a bibliography, and an index.

"Bolden, a master of the collective biography, presents an impeccably-researched call to action, imploring black girls to fight the racial and gender imbalance that plagues the STEM field." --School Library Journal (Starred Review)

"Young people are sure to find intriguing role models among the many STEM all-stars in this comprehensive look at the achievements of gifted Black scientists and doctors." --Booklist 
 

A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • This beautiful, page-turning and redemptive story of a mother’s gripping journey across the Caribbean to find her stolen children and piece her family back together is a “celebration of motherhood and female resilience” (The Observer). 

Named One of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2023 • A Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist

“A powerful novel that explores how freedom and family are truly defined”—Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian
 
Her search begins with an ending.…

The master of the Providence plantation in Barbados gathers his slaves and announces the king has decreed an end to slavery. As of the following day, the Emancipation Act of 1834 will come into effect. The cries of joy fall silent when he announces that they are no longer his slaves; they are now his apprentices. No one can leave. They must work for him for another six years. Freedom is just another name for the life they have always lived. So Rachel runs.
 
Away from Providence, she begins a desperate search to find her children—the five who survived birth and were sold. Are any of them still alive? Rachel has to know. The grueling, dangerous journey takes her from Barbados then, by river, deep into the forest of British Guiana and finally across the sea to Trinidad. She is driven on by the certainty that a mother cannot be truly free without knowing what has become of her children, even if the answer is more than she can bear. These are the stories of Mary Grace, Micah, Thomas Augustus, Cherry Jane and Mercy. But above all this is the story of Rachel and the extraordinary lengths to which a mother will go to find her children...and her freedom.

A National Book Award Finalist
A Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor Book
A Michael L. Printz Honor Book
A Walter Dean Myers Honor Book 

With passion and precision, Kekla Magoon relays an essential account of the Black Panthers—as militant revolutionaries and as human rights advocates working to defend and protect their community.


In this comprehensive, inspiring, and all-too-relevant history of the Black Panther Party, Kekla Magoon introduces readers to the Panthers’ community activism, grounded in the concept of self-defense, which taught Black Americans how to protect and support themselves in a country that treated them like second-class citizens. For too long the Panthers’ story has been a footnote to the civil rights movement rather than what it was: a revolutionary socialist movement that drew thousands of members—mostly women—and became the target of one of the most sustained repression efforts ever made by the U.S. government against its own citizens.

Revolution in Our Time puts the Panthers in the proper context of Black American history, from the first arrival of enslaved people to the Black Lives Matter movement of today. Kekla Magoon’s eye-opening work invites a new generation of readers grappling with injustices in the United States to learn from the Panthers’ history and courage, inspiring them to take their own place in the ongoing fight for justice.

Winner of the NBCC's John Leonard First Book Prize
A New York Times 2016 Notable Book
One of Oprah’s 10 Favorite Books of 2016
NPR's Debut Novel of the Year
One of Buzzfeed's Best Fiction Books Of 2016
One of Time's Top 10 Novels of 2016

“Homegoing is an inspiration.” —Ta-Nehisi Coates 


The unforgettable New York Times best seller begins with the story of two half-sisters, separated by forces beyond their control: one sold into slavery, the other married to a British slaver. Written with tremendous sweep and power, Homegoing traces the generations of family who follow, as their destinies lead them through two continents and three hundred years of history, each life indeliably drawn, as the legacy of slavery is fully revealed in light of the present day.
           
Effia and Esi are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle’s dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast’s booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia’s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.

From the cofounder of VerySmartBrothas.com, and one of the most read writers on race and culture at work today, a provocative and humorous memoir-in-essays that explores the ever-shifting definitions of what it means to be Black (and male) in America

For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as “How should I react here, as a professional black person?” and “Will this white person’s potato salad kill me?” are forever relevant.

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker chronicles Young’s efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him.

It’s a condition that’s sometimes stretched to absurd limits, provoking the angst that made him question if he was any good at the “being straight” thing, as if his sexual orientation was something he could practice and get better at, like a crossover dribble move or knitting; creating the farce where, as a teen, he wished for a white person to call him a racial slur just so he could fight him and have a great story about it; and generating the surreality of watching gentrification transform his Pittsburgh neighborhood from predominantly Black to “Portlandia . . . but with Pierogies.”  

And, at its most devastating, it provides him reason to believe that his mother would be alive today if she were white.

From one of our most respected cultural observers, What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker is a hilarious and honest debut that is both a celebration of the idiosyncrasies and distinctions of Blackness and a critique of white supremacy and how we define masculinity.

In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson's All Boys Aren't Blue explores their childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. 

A New York Times Bestseller!
Good Morning America, NBC Nightly News, Today Show, and MSNBC feature stories 

From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys. 

Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren't Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson's emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults. (Johnson used he/him pronouns at the time of publication.)

Velshi Banned Book Club 
Indie Bestseller
Teen Vogue Recommended Read
Buzzfeed Recommended Read
People Magazine Best Book of the Summer
A New York Library Best Book of 2020
A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2020 ... and more!

A 2022 Coretta Scott King Book Award Honoree!
 
This luminous, defining picture book biography illustrated by Caldecott Honoree Christian Robinson, tells the remarkable and inspiring story of acclaimed singer Nina Simone and her bold, defiant, and exultant legacy.

Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in small town North Carolina, Nina Simone was a musical child. She sang before she talked and learned to play piano at a very young age. With the support of her family and community, she received music lessons that introduced her to classical composers like Bach who remained with her and influenced her music throughout her life. She loved the way his music began softly and then tumbled to thunder, like her mother's preaching, and in much the same way as her career. During her first performances under the name of Nina Simone her voice was rich and sweet but as the Civil Rights Movement gained steam, Nina's voice soon became a thunderous roar as she raised her voice in powerful protest in the fight against racial inequality and discrimination.

A deeply reported, revealing biography of tennis phenomenon and activist Naomi Osaka, telling the untold story behind her Grand Slam-winning career, her headline-making advocacy for racial justice and mental health, and the challenges of a life in the international spotlight.

Naomi Osaka is everywhere, but how did she get there?

Most tennis fans were introduced to Naomi Osaka as they watched her win the 2018 US Open final in an unforgettably controversial and dramatic victory over her idol, Serena Williams.

Her extraordinary talent propelled her to the top of her sport and onto the front page of newspapers and magazines worldwide, but it was her unique blend of awe-striking power and disarming vulnerability that fascinated millions as she became a champion like none before her.

Osaka has captivated the tennis world-- and gained attention across the culture-- not only by winning three more Grand Slams but by finding her voice on a range of topics that have made her a touchstone far beyond sports, positioned at the crossroads of myriad social issues.

Even as she became the highest-paid female athlete in history and one of the most discussed of the past decade, until now, the story of the Haitian-Japanese-American Osaka family’s journey across the world to follow their tennis dreams has remained little known. It is a story unlike any other, and Ben Rothenberg’s biography not only shows where Osaka came from but also where she's going as she returns to competitive tennis after a year on maternity leave. Through a riveting exploration of the ways Osaka has changed the game on and off the court, Rothenberg details the incredible impact Osaka has had in the arenas of sports, media, business, social justice, and mental health.

From award-winning poet Saeed Jones, How We Fight for Our Lives—winner of the Kirkus Prize and the Stonewall Book Award—is a “moving, bracingly honest memoir” (The New York Times Book Review) written at the crossroads of sex, race, and power.

One of the best books of the year as selected by The New York Times; The Washington Post; NPR; Time; The New Yorker; O, The Oprah Magazine; Harper’s Bazaar; Elle; BuzzFeed; Goodreads; and many more.

“People don’t just happen,” writes Saeed Jones. “We sacrifice former versions of ourselves. We sacrifice the people who dared to raise us. The ‘I’ it seems doesn’t exist until we are able to say, ‘I am no longer yours.’”

Haunted and haunting, How We Fight for Our Lives is a stunning coming-of-age memoir about a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence—into tumultuous relationships with his family, into passing flings with lovers, friends, and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another—and to one another—as we fight to become ourselves.

An award-winning poet, Jones has developed a style that’s as beautiful as it is powerful—a voice that’s by turns a river, a blues, and a nightscape set ablaze. How We Fight for Our Lives is a one-of-a-kind memoir and a book that cements Saeed Jones as an essential writer for our time.

An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller
A TIME Top 100 Fantasy Books of All Time
A New York Times Notable Children's Book
A Kirkus Prize Finalist

With five starred reviews, Tomi Adeyemi’s West African-inspired fantasy debut, and instant #1 New York Times Bestseller, conjures a world of magic and danger, perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo and Sabaa Tahir.

They killed my mother.
They took our magic.
They tried to bury us.

Now we rise.

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls.

But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.

Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.

Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy.

Praise for Children of Blood and Bone

"A phenomenon." —Entertainment Weekly

“The epic I’ve been waiting for.” —New York Times-bestselling author Marie Lu 

“You will be changed. You will be ready to rise up and reclaim your own magic!” —New York Times-bestselling author Dhonielle Clayton

“The next big thing in literature and film.” —Ebony

“One of the biggest young adult fiction debut book deals of the year.” —Teen Vogue

This title has Common Core connections.

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The Complete Legacy of Orïsha Series:

Children of Blood and Bone (Book 1)
Children of Virtue and Vengeance (Book 2)
Children of Anguish and Anarchy (Book 3)

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this Pulitzer Prize-winning follow-up to The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.
 
When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes ever more perilous, the tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.
 
Based on the real story of a reform school that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers and “should further cement Whitehead as one of his generation's best" (Entertainment Weekly). 

Look for Colson Whitehead’s bestselling new novel, Harlem Shuffle!

Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters.

Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide.
 
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.
 
Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity.”—James Baldwin

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A chorus of extraordinary voices tells the epic story of the four-hundred-year journey of African Americans from 1619 to the present—edited by Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, and Keisha N. Blain, author of Set the World on Fire.

FINALIST FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post, Town & Country, Ms. magazine, BookPage, She Reads, BookRiot, Booklist • “A vital addition to [the] curriculum on race in America . . . a gateway to the solo works of all the voices in Kendi and Blain’s impressive choir.”—The Washington Post
 
“From journalist Hannah P. Jones on Jamestown’s first slaves to historian Annette Gordon-Reed’s portrait of Sally Hemings to the seductive cadences of poets Jericho Brown and Patricia Smith, Four Hundred Souls weaves a tapestry of unspeakable suffering and unexpected transcendence.”—O: The Oprah Magazine

The story begins in 1619—a year before the Mayflower—when the White Lion disgorges “some 20-and-odd Negroes” onto the shores of Virginia, inaugurating the African presence in what would become the United States. It takes us to the present, when African Americans, descendants of those on the White Lion and a thousand other routes to this country, continue a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles, stunning achievements, and millions of ordinary lives passing through extraordinary history. 

Four Hundred Souls is a unique one-volume “community” history of African Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span. The writers explore their periods through a variety of techniques: historical essays, short stories, personal vignettes, and fiery polemics. They approach history from various perspectives: through the eyes of towering historical icons or the untold stories of ordinary people; through places, laws, and objects. While themes of resistance and struggle, of hope and reinvention, course through the book, this collection of diverse pieces from ninety different minds, reflecting ninety different perspectives, fundamentally deconstructs the idea that Africans in America are a monolith—instead it unlocks the startling range of experiences and ideas that have always existed within the community of Blackness. 

This is a history that illuminates our past and gives us new ways of thinking about our future, written by the most vital and essential voices of our present.