List

Pura Belpré Award winner Yamile Saied Méndez welcomes readers back to the ranch in the fourth installment of Horse Country!

Carolina Aguasvivas's oldest friend, Vida Jones Castillo, has never been interested in riding horses -- until now! Carolina is thrilled for her BFF to join Paradise Ranch, along with new sponsorship student Brielle Stuart. The barn is a full, happy house!

But the girls' perfect summer falls apart when they find out that one of the horses might be sold -- Carolina's favorite riding buddy, Shadow. Can Carolina and her friends save her beloved horse... and the future of the Unbridled Dreams program?

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The acclaimed author of Red at the Bone tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing poems.

A NEWBERY HONOR BOOK • WINNER OF THE CORETTA SCOTT KING BOOK AWARD • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST MIDDLE GRADE BOOK OF THE CENTURY

“Moving and resonant . . . captivating.”—The Wall Street Journal

I am born in Ohio but
the stories of South Carolina already run
like rivers
through my veins.

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Jacqueline Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 70s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, providing a glimpse into a child’s soul as she finds her voice through writing and searches for her place in the world. 

Teeming with feeling and deeply personal, Brown Girl Dreaming is the groundbreaking chronicle of Woodson’s journey to storytelling, and a beautiful portrayal of physical, emotional, and spiritual growth. 

From award-winning author, Grace Lin, comes another installment of the irresistible early reader series, Ling & Ting, as the iconic twins celebrate Lunar New Year! 

Ling and Ting are twins. They are Chinese and American. They celebrate the new year two times. Now they are preparing for Lunar New Year. They want a lucky year. What happens when Ting makes a mistake? Can their year still be lucky?

"These twins make learning to read double the fun." - Kirkus

* Don't miss Ling and Ting's other adventures!:

• Ling & Ting: Not Exactly the Same
• Ling & Ting: Twice as Silly
• Ling & Ting: Together in All Weather
• Ling & Ting Share a Birthday

In luminous paintings and arresting poems, two of children’s literature’s top African-American scholars track Arturo Schomburg’s quest to correct history.

Where is our historian to give us our side? Arturo asked. 

Amid the scholars, poets, authors, and artists of the Harlem Renaissance stood an Afro–Puerto Rican named Arturo Schomburg. This law clerk’s life’s passion was to collect books, letters, music, and art from Africa and the African diaspora and bring to light the achievements of people of African descent through the ages. When Schomburg’s collection became so big it began to overflow his house (and his wife threatened to mutiny), he turned to the New York Public Library, where he created and curated a collection that was the cornerstone of a new Negro Division. A century later, his groundbreaking collection, known as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, has become a beacon to scholars all over the world.

Lily LaMotte, brilliant author of the graphic novel Measuring Up, an ALA Top Ten, has written her debut picture book about a special Lunar New Year feast. Perfect for fans of Bringing in the New Year by Grace Lin and I Am Golden by Eva Chen.

"Themes of love and family underlie the snappy text." --Kirkus Reviews

It's almost Lunar New Year, and Chloe can't wait to celebrate! But first, Chloe and her family must prepare for the new year. They buy new shoes, lay out good-luck oranges in a bowl, decorate the red envelope, and make a crispy turnip cake. Everyone comes together to cook a fantastic feast, saving a plate for A-má, of course. Chloe enjoys the festive celebration and yummy food, but most of all she loves spending time with her family.

Lily LaMotte and Michelle Lee have created a tender, warm, and uplifting holiday story about tradition and the importance of being with those you love.

The back matter contains educational facts about the Lunar New Year celebration in Taiwan and a fun recipe for a yummy fortune cake!

A Bank Street Books Best Children's Book of the Year for ages 12-14 in Family/School/Community Fiction (2024)

A Boston Globe / Horn Book Honor winner * Four Starred Reviews * Over Ten Best-of-Year Lists"Powerful.... Johnson writes about the long shadows of the past with such ambition that any reader with a taste for mystery will appreciate the puzzle Candice and Brandon must solve." -- The New York Times Book Review

A Coretta Scott King Author Honor and Boston Globe / Horn Book Honor winner!"Powerful.... Johnson writes about the long shadows of the past with such ambition that any reader with a taste for mystery will appreciate the puzzle Candice and Brandon must solve." -- The New York Times Book ReviewWhen Candice finds a letter in an old attic in Lambert, South Carolina, she isn't sure she should read it. It's addressed to her grandmother, who left the town in shame. But the letter describes a young woman. An injustice that happened decades ago. A mystery enfolding its writer. And the fortune that awaits the person who solves the puzzle.So with the help of Brandon, the quiet boy across the street, she begins to decipher the clues. The challenge will lead them deep into Lambert's history, full of ugly deeds, forgotten heroes, and one great love; and deeper into their own families, with their own unspoken secrets. Can they find the fortune and fulfill the letter's promise before the answers slip into the past yet again?

Two young siblings learn the story behind traditional Tết (Vietnamese New Year) cakes in Legendary Cakes, a captivating picture book from author/illustrator Kerisa Greene.

Spring is almost here and Tết is even closer.
A celebration for the first morning of the first
day of the new year.

It's almost time for Tết, the Vietnamese New Year, which for two excited siblings means a sleepover at their Bà's house, where she will teach them to make bánh chưng, the traditional New Year cakes. When the cakes take forever to steam and the boredom starts to set in, Bà begins to tell the thrilling tale of an ancient prince, a contest, and how bánh chưng came to be.

Legendary Cakes is a mouth-watering celebration of how food, stories, and holidays keep cultures alive for future generations.

A 2016 Caldecott Honor Book
A 2016 Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
A 2016 John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award Winner

Stirring poems and stunning collage illustrations combine to celebrate the life of Fannie Lou Hamer, a champion of equal voting rights.

“I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

Despite fierce prejudice and abuse, even being beaten to within an inch of her life, Fannie Lou Hamer was a champion of civil rights from the 1950s until her death in 1977. Integral to the Freedom Summer of 1964, Ms. Hamer gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention that, despite President Johnson’s interference, aired on national TV news and spurred the nation to support the Freedom Democrats. Featuring vibrant mixed-media art full of intricate detail, Voice of Freedom celebrates Fannie Lou Hamer’s life and legacy with a message of hope, determination, and strength.

From Korean American author-illustrator Aram Kim, Tomorrow is New Year's Day follows a little girl sharing the fun customs of Seollal—the Korean Lunar New Year—with her classmates.

Seollal, the Korean Lunar New Year, is Mina’s favorite day of the year.

Mina can't wait to share the customs of Seollal with all of her friends at school. She will show her classmates her colorful hanbok, demonstrate how to do sebae, and then everyone will make tasty tteokguk in the cooking room. Yum! Her little brother may even join in on the fun... if he can find a way out of his bad mood.

In this joyful book about sharing age-old cultural celebrations with new friends, Aram Kim has created a must-have book for the New Year’s season. A glossary of Korean terms, with pronunciation guide, is included.

A poignant picture book biography on how John Lewis got his library card and helped change history.

All John Lewis wanted was a library card, but in 1956, libraries were only for white people.

That didn't seem fair to John, and so he spent a lifetime advocating for change and fighting against unfair laws until the laws changed. Finally, black people could eat at restaurants, see movies, vote in elections, and even get library cards. With an in-depth author's note, a timeline of John Lewis's life, and a lengthy list of resources, Unstoppable John, illustrated by Jerry Jordan and written by New York Times bestselling author Pat Zietlow Miller, explores the profound impact John had on the world and that books had on him.

The "Queen of Fairytale Retellings" is back! #1 New York Times bestselling author Marissa Meyer weaves the tale of Bluebeard as it's never been told before. This is a thrilling romantasy and murder mystery, perfect for fans Meyer's Cinder and Heartless.

Mallory Fontaine is a fraud. Though she comes from a long line of witches, the only magic she possesses is the ability to see ghosts, which is rarely as useful as one would think. She and her sister have maintained the family business, eking out a paltry living by selling bogus spells to gullible buyers and conducting tours of the infamous mansion where the first of the Saphir murders took place. 

Mallory is a self-proclaimed expert on Count Bastien Saphir—otherwise known as Monsieur Le Bleu—who brutally killed three of his wives more than a century ago. But she never expected to meet Bastien's great-great grandson and heir to the Saphir estate. Armand is handsome, wealthy, and convinced that the Fontaine Sisters are as talented as they claim. The perfect mark. When he offers Mallory a large sum of money to rid his ancestral home of Le Bleu's ghost, she can’t resist. A paid vacation at Armand’s country manor? It’s practically a dream come true, never mind the ghosts of murdered wives and the monsters that are as common as household pests. 

But when murder again comes to the House Saphir, Mallory finds herself at the center of the investigation—and she is almost certain the killer is mortal. If she has any hope of cashing in on the payment she was promised, she’ll have to solve the murder and banish the ghost, all while upholding the illusion of witchcraft.

But that all sounds relatively easy compared to her biggest challenge: learning to trust her heart. Especially when the person her heart wants the most might be a murderer himself.

Descending from the depths of night, dorky Daisuke and devilishly dashing Dark return in a new special edition! They're bigger and better than ever with full-color chapter illustrations in this updated omnibus collection!Today was the day. Daisuke Niwa was determined to tell the girl of his dreams how he feels about her and maybe (hopefully) become her boyfriend. Except, uhhh...she flat-out rejected him, and now he's stuck with his alter ego, the legendary phantom thief Dark. That means both the police and his classmate Satoshi Hiwatari (the prodigious son of the police commissioner--who knew?) are after him. And what's worse, the only way to stop the body swap is to woo the object of his affections as his usual klutzy self...

“At NASA, our eyes are not just focused on the stars but also fixated on the sky.” –NASA Administrator Bill Nelson

“NASA’s future will continue to be a story of human exploration, technology, and science.... We will continue to try to answer the question, ‘Are we alone?’” –NASA

In 1915 the US Congress created the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The committee’s first goal was to support the development of aviation. But in the wake of the space race with the Soviet Union that began in the late 1950s, NACA became NASA—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. From novel technology to international collaboration to scientific research, NASA has become a global leader in space exploration. It even enabled people to walk on the moon for the first time.

But how did NASA get here? What has the agency accomplished along the way? Award-winning science author Ron Miller explains NASA’s rich history through a curious, detailed exploration of its successes and failures. Discover the full story of how NASA came to be and learn about its many accomplishments and the scientists and technology behind them. Then look to the future through NASA’s Artemis program and their next big goal of sending astronauts to Mars.

From the ginormous, extinct Prototaxites to the web of mycelium stretching beneath our feet, fungi have always been all around us.

Although scientists estimate that only 10 percent of fungi have been discovered, these findings have proved fantastic. Some fungi are toxic. But others are tasty sources of protein or drive the production of bread, cheeses, and fermented drinks. Some make up medicines to treat health conditions. Others connect vast swaths of trees, capture pollutants in the water and soil, or grow into sturdy but lightweight building materials. Many fungi are even fun to look at—they might ooze blood-like sap, glow at night, and more. What else might fungi be able to do?

Karen Latchana Kenney digs deep into the expansive fungal world. Learn about how fungi evolved and became their own kingdom. Then explore the many known fungi and how we use them in food, medicine, technology, and more. Entire communities have sprung up around identifying mushrooms—maybe you’ll even be the next member of your local mycological society. From the most well-known mushrooms to the mycelium hidden beneath our feet, this in-depth text digs deep into the incredible fungal world.

"Fans of Jenny Han and Sarah Dessen will appreciate this cozy, witty, and warm novel that captures the joy of finding community and love in unexpected places." - Booklist

Sometimes real life is better than fiction ...
Anna's summer is not off to a good start--her boyfriend ghosted her and she's sure she failed her exams. So when her aunt invites her to come work at her seaside bookshop, Anna is happy to get out of town.
But it's hard to get her life back on track with so many distractions. For example, the infuriatingly hot local surfer who keeps crossing her path, plus the celebrity book launch Anna unwittingly agrees to host at the bookshop.
It's not the summer Anna had planned ... but it might be even better.

• Seaside setting: Take a vacation in a cozy British coastal town, where the charming Wildest Dreams Bookshop welcomes everyone!
• Opposites attract: Type-A Anna has nothing in common with laidback surfer Jacob ... or does she?
• There's more: Return to Fox Bay with SNOWED IN AT THE WILDEST DREAMS BOOKSHOP, a wintery grumpy x sunshine romance!
• Standalone romcoms: Each book in the Wildest Dreams Bookshop series can be read on its own, though of course we hope you'll visit again soon!

From the bestselling author of The Kissing Booth comes a romantic comedy about a girl who joins a book fantasy fandom to win over her crush, only to discover that love is just as complicated online.

When Cerys’ secret crush Jake moves to a new college, she realizes she’s running out of time to take their relationship from platonic to romantic. She’ll do anything to get out of Jake’s friend zone, even if that means finally diving into the huge fantasy fandom he loves so much. Though she absolutely can’t see the appeal in Of Wrath and Rune, if Jake loves it, then Cerys will too.

When Jake introduces Cerys to his shiny new friend Max, who goes to all the fandom conventions—in cosplay (cringe)—Cerys realizes she’ll need to do a lot more to grab Jake’s attention than just read a few fanfics. But Max, with his dimples and dry humor, always seems to be hanging around, getting in the way.

Cerys is determined to become the ultimate fangirl to finally get on Jake’s radar. What she doesn’t expect is that she might actually like Of Wrath and Rune . . . and might like DMing with a suspiciously familiar guy in the fandom even more.

From the acclaimed author of the delicious Idol Gossip comes a new music-themed novel with an irresistible backbeat and a thoughtful read on friendship and identity.

When Lou enlists her best friend, Molly, to shave her head, it's partly so she doesn't have to deal with washing her hair all the time while on tour--and partly because she's ready to be a new person. No stranger to reinventing herself, restless Lou is a Cuban-American girl who's never left Texas, let alone the country. But the "New Lou" has deferred her first semester at Texas State to work for a celebrity musician on tour. She's bound for China, Japan, half of Europe, and everywhere in between, though it means getting intimately acquainted with the band's dirty laundry. Even with her road crew uncle on alert, it will be the summer of a lifetime, full of underground parties, disco spas, and gelato. When Lou falls for a tattooed guitar prodigy who makes her feel achingly alive, it doesn't cross her mind to doubt him or--as life on the road tightens its hold--her course. Will Molly know her when she returns, if she returns? Who is the "New Lou" really? Pulsing with energy and authentic detail, this story of self-discovery ushers readers backstage on a sensational world tour.

Four girls, all named Taylor, make for one unforgettable friendship! International bestseller Elizabeth Eulberg follows four stories of first love, friendship, and heartbreak. Don't miss the sequel, Cruel Summer, or the sister novel, Jen Calonita's The Taylors!

Not all friendships are forever and always . . .

Teffy, Tay, Taylor, and TS have been best friends since middle school. As they enter their high school freshmen era, relationships bring on the drama.

Teffy is crushing on the boy next door who belongs to someone else. Tay finds herself down bad for a tortured poet. Things get treacherous as an older boy starts flirting with Taylor. And TS is definitely focused only on soccer and doesn't fancy her new teammate, a cute London girl . . . right?

Suddenly, it feels like everything has changed. Pulled in different directions between navigating high school and new relationships, will their friendship be long lived or is it so long, Taylors?

In New York Times bestselling author Sara Holland's new novel, Break Wide the Sea, a young woman cursed with a fatal heartbreak-induced sickness must race against time to find a cure and protect her family legacy from the ancient finfolk that would destroy it, the fiancé that would kill her for it, and the boy who would love her if she forsook it. 

In the treacherous waters surrounding Kirkrell, sailors hunting magic whales live in fear of the finfolk--bloodthirsty sea fae who sink ships and curse bloodlines. Nineteen-year-old Annie, as heir to the city's preeminent whaling company, is determined to carry on her parents' life's work. But she keeps a secret from everyone: she's cursed to transform into a monster, with scales spreading up her arms and claws growing from her fingertips.

Her fiancé August offers comfort, but their love falls apart when Annie discovers his plan to take over the company. Desperate, Annie makes a deal with Silas Price, a young captain rumored to be half-finfolk. He says he knows how to break the curse – but only if Annie promises to stop the practice of whaling forever.

As Annie, August and Silas sail north, Annie wrestling with her family's legacy, the threat of the finfolk and August's ambitions increasingly force her to put her trust in Silas. Yet Silas has secrets of his own, and they might be the most dangerous of all.

The instant NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestseller!

Featuring beautiful sprayed edges!

A young warrior dreams of proving his worth in the elite Guardian's Tournament, fighting not only for himself but the fate of everything he loves.

Sixteen-year-old Jun dreams of proving his worth as a warrior in the elite Guardian’s Tournament, held every six years to entrust the magical Scroll of Heaven to a new protector. Eager to prove his skills, Jun hopes that a win will restore his father’s pride—righting a horrible mistake that caused their banishment from his home, mother, and twin brother.

But Jun’s father strictly forbids him from participating. He believes there is no future in Jun honing his skills as a warrior, especially considering Jun is not breathmarked, born with a patch of dragon scales and blessed with special abilities like his twin. Determined to be the next Guardian, Jun stows away in the wagon of Chang and his daughter, Ren, performers on their way to the capital where the tournament will take place.

As Jun competes, he quickly realizes he may be fighting for not just a better life, but the fate of the country itself and the very survival of everyone he cares about.

In this gripping thriller, truth and justice are called into question when a Black man is gunned down in cold blood—the first novel in a riveting series from renowned civil rights attorney Ben Crump.

“A sensationally good crime and legal thriller . . . This is exactly what a book should be.”—Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of the Reacher series

It’s the night of November 4, 2008. America’s first Black president has just been elected. And fifty-three-year-old Hollis Montrose—a Black ex–police officer from the suburbs of Chicago—has become the latest victim of a brutal attack. As the result of a traffic stop gone wrong, Hollis is shot ten times in cold blood, by four white men who could have been his colleagues back in his police days.

Beau Lee Cooper was born serious, as if on an urgent mission with little time to waste. Raised in the tumultuous world of 1970s Texas, he always dreamed of becoming a lawyer and fighting for what’s right, ever since he was a little boy reading To Kill a Mockingbird. And now, ten years into running his own law firm with his best friend and partner in crime, Nelson “Nellie” Rivers, and his suave right-hand-man, Brent “Cape” Capers, he feels he’s finally making a difference. When Beau Lee learns about Hollis’s situation, he’s determined to help.

Miraculously, Hollis survives the encounter, but the Chicago police department has already spun the narrative in its favor, and Hollis is given a wrongful prison sentence with an unreasonable bail. What really happened that night the car was pulled over? Was it random or was Hollis targeted? Beau Lee knows he’s treading in dangerous waters, and finding evidence of the truth will be his biggest challenge yet, but with troubling powers at play, one innocent man’s life hangs in the balance.

"In her latest, Riley provides a fresh take on high seas adventure through the eyes of the courageous, swashbuckling, based-on-a-real-life female pirate Jacquotte Delahaye. The research Riley has done on this 1600s saga is truly remarkable, second only to her depictions of the lush Caribbean setting and the diverse, multi-faceted cast of characters. This is one to be savored." --Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Queen

The real Pirates of the Caribbean were Black, and women! From Vanessa Riley, acclaimed author of Queen of Exiles, comes a sweeping, immersive saga based on the life of the legendary seventeenth-century pirate Jacquotte Delehaye.

The Caribbean Sea, 1675. Jacquotte Delahaye is the mixed-race daughter of a wealthy tavern owner on the island of Tortuga. Instead of marriage, Jacquotte dreams of joining the seafarers and smugglers whose tall-masted ships cluster in the turquoise waters around Tortuga. She falls in love with a pirate, but when he returns to the sea, Jacquotte decides to make her own way. In Haiti she becomes Jacques, a dockworker, earning the respect of those around her while hiding her gender.

Jacquotte discovers that secret identities are fairly common in the chaotic world of seafaring, which is full of outsiders and misfits. She forms a deep bond with Bahati, an African-born woman who has escaped slavery and also disguises herself as a man to navigate the world. They join forces with Dirkje De Wulf, a fearless adventurer who also lives as a man at sea. As Jacques, Jacquotte falls in love with Lizzôa d'Erville, a beautiful courtesan who deals in secrets and sex. While others see their work clothes as a disguise, Lizzôa's true self is as a woman.

For the next twenty years, Jacquotte raids the Caribbean, making enemies and amassing a fortune in stolen gold. When her fellow pirates decide to increase their profits by entering the slave trade, Jacquotte turns away from piracy and the pursuit of riches. Risking her life in one deadly skirmish after another, she instead begins to plot a war of liberation.

The posthumous memoir of Rev. James Lawson Jr., peer of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., mentor to Congressman John Lewis and the Freedom Riders, and a principal architect of a nonviolent resistance movement that changed the world.

“This book is a gift to be treasured, from a man who has already given so much.”—Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of King: A Life

Rev. Lawson was one of the most influential yet unheralded heroes of the civil rights era. He rose as a strategist, teacher, and organizer in pivotal campaigns on the national stage against racial and economic injustice.

Lawson’s memoir spans 95 years, but it begins far from the spotlight in a large, working-class Ohio family. The son and grandson of Methodist ministers, he receives his license to preach before graduating from high school.

Lawson goes on to serve time in prison for refusing the Korean War draft, and learns from independence movements during three years in India and Africa. He then fortifies the principles of a new American Revolution when he teaches nonviolent direct action centered in love and moral clarity to the Little Rock Nine, the Mississippi Freedom Summer volunteers, and countless others. He also becomes a leader in the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, the 1963 Birmingham campaign, the 1966 Meredith March Against Fear, and the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers' strike.

Nonviolent delivers an intimate self-portrait of Lawson as a man who recognized the inherent dignity of everyone, and challenged all forms of violence, including police brutality, enforced poverty, and what he called plantation capitalism. It shows his quest for justice continuing in Los Angeles well into the 21st century, as he helped foster a more inclusive labor movement and an enduring immigrant rights movement.

Nonviolent is a riveting historical narrative from a central figure in global liberation and a testament to compelling a nation to live up to its founding ideals of liberty and justice for all.

From the two-time Emmy Award–winning producer and host of the Black and Published podcast comes a sweeping multi-generational epic following seven generations of Dupree women as they navigate love, loss, and the unyielding ties of family in the tradition of Homegoing and The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois.

It’s 1995, and fourteen-year-old Tati is determined to uncover the identity of her father. But her mother, Nadia, keeps her secrets close, while her grandmother Gladys remains silent about the family’s past, including why she left Land’s End, Alabama, in 1953. As Tati digs deeper, she uncovers a legacy of family secrets, where every generation of Dupree women has posed more questions than answers.

From Jubi in 1917, whose attempt to pass for white ends when she gives birth to Ruby; to Ruby’s fiery lust for Sampson in 1934 that leads to a baby of her own; to the night in 1980 that changed Nadia’s future forever, the Dupree women carry the weight of their heritage. Bound by a mysterious malediction that means they will only give birth to daughters, the Dupree women confront a legacy of pain, resilience, and survival that began with an enslaved ancestor who risked everything for freedom.

The Seven Daughters of Dupree masterfully weaves together themes of generational trauma, Black women’s resilience, and unbreakable familial bonds. Echoing the literary power of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis, Nikesha Elise Williams delivers a feminist literary fiction that explores the ripple effects of actions, secrets, and love through seven generations of Black women.

Nobel laureate and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Beloved Toni Morrison investigates Black characters in the American literary canon and the way they shaped the nation’s collective unconscious.

In a dazzling series of lectures from her tenure as a professor at Princeton University, Toni Morrison interrogates America’s most famous works and authors, drawing a direct line from the Black bodies that built the nation to the Black characters that many of the country’s canonical white writers imagined in their work. Morrison sees these fictions as a form of creation and projection, arguing that they helped manufacture American racialidentity—these “Africanist” presences are “the shadow that makes light possible,” as Morrison writes, and the reflections of their authors’ own deepest fears, insecurities, and longings.

With profound erudition and wit, Morrison breaks wide open the American conception of race with energetic, enlivening readings of the nation’s canon, revealing that our liberation from these diminishing notions comes through language. “How,” Morrison wonders, “could one speak of profit, of economy, of labor, or progress, of suffragism, or Christianity, of the frontier, of the formation of new states, the acquisition of new lands . . . of practically anything a new nation concerns itself with—without having as a referent, at the heart of the discourse or defining its edges, the presence of Africans and/or their descendants?”

To read these lectures, collected here for the first time, is to encounter Morrison, not just the writer but also the teacher, in the most penetrating and subversive way yet. With a foreword by her son Ford Morrison and an introduction by her Princeton comparative literature colleague Claudia Brodsky, Language as Liberation is a revelatory collection that promises to redefine the American canon.

A gripping novel of two young women fighting for survival on the edge of the wilderness, and the love that simultaneously sustains them and threatens their very existence, from the author of the Good Morning America Book Club pick River Sing Me Home. 

Nova Scotia, 1796. Cora, an orphan newly arrived from Jamaica, has never felt cold like this. In the depths of winter, everyone in her community huddles together in their homes to keep warm. So when she sees a shadow slipping through the trees, Cora thinks her eyes are deceiving her...until she creeps out into the moonlight and finds the tracks in the snow.

Agnes is in hiding. On the run from her former life, she has learned what it takes to survive alone in the wilderness. But she can afford no mistakes. When she first spies the young woman in the woods, she is afraid. Yet Cora is fearless, and their paths are destined to cross.

Deep among the cedars, Cora and Agnes find a fragile place of safety. But when Agnes’s past closes in, they are confronted with the dangerous price of freedom—and of love....

With evocative prose and immersive storytelling, Fireflies in Winter is a powerful novel about love—love for the wilderness in all its unforgiving beauty, and love between two women who risk everything to be together.

From Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body and a writer who “has brilliantly illuminated the Black experience in America for decades” (Bryan Stevenson), comes a spirited and riveting memoir of growing up in an interracial family in 1960s Chicago and a daughter’s journey to understand her parents’ marriage—and her own identity.

Dorothy Roberts grew up in a deeply segregated Chicago of the 1960s where relationships barely crossed the “colorline.” Yet inside her own home, where her father was white and her mother a Black Jamaican immigrant, interracial marriage wasn’t just a part of her upbringing, it was a shared mission. Her father, an anthropologist, spent her entire childhood working on a book about Black-white marriages—a project he never finished but shaped every aspect of their family life.

As a 21-year-old graduate student, Dorothy’s father dedicated himself to the study of interracial marriage and her mother soon became his full-time partner in that work. Together over the years they interviewed over 500 couples and assembled stunning stories about interracial marriages that took place as early as the 1880s—studying, but also living, championing, and believing in their power to advance social equality.

Decades later, while sorting through her father’s papers, Roberts uncovers a truth that upends everything she thought she knew about her family: her father’s research didn’t begin with her parents’ love story—it came long before it. This discovery forces her to wrestle with her father’s intentions, her own views about interracial relationships, and where she fits in that story. Rather than finish the book her father never published, Roberts immerses herself in their archive of interviews to trace the story of her parents and to better understand her own.

Though grounded in her parents’ research, it’s Roberts’ captivating storytelling that drives this memoir. In following the arc of her parents’ interviews and marriage, The Mixed Marriage Project invites us into the everyday lives of interracial couples in Chicago over four decades. Along the way, Roberts reflects on her own childhood as a Black girl with a white father, and how those experiences shaped her into one of today’s most prominent public thinkers and scholars on race. Blurring the boundaries between the political and the personal, between memoir and history, The Mixed Marriage Project is a deeply moving meditation on family, race, identity, and love.

The page-turning and revelatory true story of America’s disastrous 1835 attack on the Seminoles in pre-statehood Florida, and the two men—a Black American and a renowned Indigenous warrior—who fought back for their homes and freedom, from the author of “eye-opening marvel of a book” (Alexander Rose, New York Times bestselling author) 12 Seconds of Silence. 

From 1817 to 1858, a series of conflicts known as the Seminole Wars took place between the United States and the tribes of Florida as they battled for the land.

Within this unconquered territory, formerly enslaved mothers and fathers and Seminole families had lived side by side for generations, building communities in the interior, beyond the reach of the growing United States. But in 1835, the young country took up arms against them, seeking to forcibly remove all Indigenous people and return their allies to slavery. In the face of this terror, tribes and bands came together across racial lines to preserve their freedom from federal interference. As the fight waged on, two men—Abraham, a free Black American, and the esteemed Creek warrior Osceola—worked together to save their lands and their people, against overwhelming odds, from America’s formidable Army of the South.

A powerful and vivid exploration of an overlooked revolt and historical alliances between Afro-descendant families and Indigenous tribes, The Free and the Dead is a timeless work of history that sits alongside Empire of the Summer Moon and The Demon of Unrest.

From acclaimed author Terah Shelton Harris comes a poignant story of survival and redemption that questions what it means to stop existing and start living.

Leigh is the last of the Wildes. She knows this because she watched them all die.

Grief never truly fades and even as the tragedy haunts her, Leigh carries on, because survival is in her blood. So, when the transport bus taking her to prison careens off the road, killing everyone onboard except her, she does what's in her nature. She survives.

While searching for a place to hide, Leigh stumbles upon an unexpected sanctuary: a flower farm in rural Alabama tucked away from the world. What Leigh doesn't expect is the found family there who have built something from the wreckage of their own lives. Especially Jackson, the farm's owner, who sees through Leigh's defenses, offers her small moments of tenderness, encourages her to face her own tragedies. Slowly, Leigh finds peace with the hard pace and soft nature of the farm, taking comfort in the life blooming around her. Maybe she's not beyond redemption, not too broken for something good. And maybe, just maybe, Leigh starts to heal.

But the past isn't so easily buried.

No matter how far she runs, the truth of who she is and the ghosts of the Wildes follow. And when those secrets catch up to her, threatening everything she's come to love, Leigh will have to truly face what she can survive.

This stunning cultural and personal reclamation of Black history and Black botanical mastery offers up lessons from the natural world shared through the stories of long-lived trees.

The histories of trees in America are also the histories of Black Americans. Pecan trees were domesticated by an enslaved African named Antoine; sycamore trees were both havens and signposts for people trying to escape enslavement; poplar trees are historically associated with lynching; and willow bark has offered the gift of medicine. These trees, and others, testify not only to the complexity of the Black American narrative but also to a heritage of Black botanical expertise that, like Native American traditions, predates the United States entirely.

In When Trees Testify, award-winning plant biologist Beronda L. Montgomery explores the ways seven trees—as well as the cotton shrub—are intertwined with Black history and culture. She reveals how knowledge surrounding these trees has shaped America since the very beginning. As Montgomery shows, trees are material witnesses to the lives of enslaved Africans and their descendants.

Combining the wisdom of science and history with stories from her own path to botany, Montgomery talks to majestic trees, and in this unique and compelling narrative, they answer.