Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup is a memoir of a black man who was born free in New York state but kidnapped, sold into slavery and kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before the American Civil War. He provided details of slave markets in Washington, DC, as well as describing at length cotton cultivation on major plantations in Louisiana.
Tyrone's mom tells him not to wear his hoodie at night. It could get him killed by the police. Too many black sons are dying.
Jason is sure his sister, Becca, was murdered, but he’s the only one who thinks so. After finding a photograph Becca kept hidden, he decides to infiltrate a boxing gym to prove that she didn’t die accidentally. As a transgender kid, Jason’s been fighting for as long as he can remember, and those skills are going to come in handy as he investigates. Quickly invited into the inner circle, Jason must balance newfound friendships with the burning hate that drives him. Jason soon feels torn between two worlds, determined to discover what happened to his sister but struggling with the fact that this is the first time he’s ever felt like he belonged somewhere.
Wes notices that his neighbor can't use her treehouse because she's in a wheelchair. What will he do to help her?
Ernesto Sandoval begins his junior year at Cesar Chavez High School a virtual stranger. He didn't want to move back to the barrio after a decade in Los Angeles. After all, he had a lot of friends and even a girlfriend. But then he spies Naomi Martinez- the most beautiful girl he's ever seen. And he falls hard.
Malia MacLeod is part Hawaiian and part Haole, the Hawaiian word for Caucasian. Raised in Los Angeles, she returns to Oahu to teach high school and learn about her family's history.
Middle graders will laugh and cry with thirteen-year-old Vanessa Martin as she tries to be like Vanessa Williams, the first black Miss America. In this semi-autobiographical debut novel set in 1983, Vanessa Martin's real-life reality of living with family in public housing in Newark, New Jersey is a far cry from the glamorous Miss America stage. She struggles with a mother she barely remembers, a grandfather dealing with addiction and her own battle with self-confidence. But when a new teacher at school coordinates a beauty pageant and convinces Vanessa to enter, Vanessa's view of her own world begins to change. Vanessa discovers that her own self-worth is more than the scores of her talent performance and her interview answers, and that she doesn't need a crown to be comfortable in her own skin and see her own true beauty.
A beautiful collection of stories for children in which Tolstoy retells the wonderful fables from Aesop, old Hindu tales and Russian shorts as well as legends that transcend borders and continents.
Ten years after the events of Riders of the Purple Sage, John Shefford leaves Illinois to find Fay Larkin, the woman he loves although they never actually met face to face. But to survive in the West, he first must be apprenticed by Navajo Nas Ta Bega. Eventually she finds the woman under a different name. The running begins starting from a natural rock formation called The Rainbow Bridge.
Japanese for ‘ghost stories’, Kwaidan is a collection of supernatural occurrences as told by the Japanese oral historians. Witness horror straight from the Masters of Horror and be prepared to meet fantastic characters like spirits, goblins and insects that mimic human behavior.
A collection of 15 essays that examine the inner spiritual life of Japan through the people that make Japan the unique place it is.
Nick was used to being good at everything. Hockey, football, track, they all came easy to him. Surfing was his latest passion. That is, until the accident. Now partially paralyzed, Nick is angry, depressed and getting far too fond of his prescription meds. But his frequent visits to his physiotherapist, a Syrian refugee, and a budding friendship with a partial amputee who has also experienced firsthand the horrors of war help him start to piece his life back together. A story about overcoming the odds and changing your life for the better.
A jewelry store robber discovers the amazing abilities of the disabled young woman who witnessed his crime.
This collection of original folktales and stories created the foundation for the most popular films in recent memory including: Star Wars, Star Trek, Superman, and Lord of the Rings.
Italian-Americans compose one of the largest ethnic groups in the United States.Unfortunately, they have often been portrayed negatively in fiction and film based on stereotypes that are not borne out among the immigrant population. These entertaining stories highlight a rich cultural heritage that has often been neglected.
In the Native American tradition, a strong connection exists between the spirit world and the natural world. It is believed that what happens in one has a definite impact on the other. In this collection, Choctaw storyteller Tim Tingle draws from the rich heritage of the Five Civilized Tribes - the Creek, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole nations.
Maybe it's because his mother was a teacher. Or maybe it's because he has spent most of his life in classrooms - as a wide-eyed first grader, a naive college student, a seminarian, and now as a visiting writer in residencies across the country. There's something about school that infuses the work of Donald Davis and he has collected his all-time favorite school stories in the book. Whether we're traveling around the world with Miss Daisy, the fourth grade teacher who was integrating arithmetic, geography and English before the term whole language ever surfaced; or watching in awe as a classmate conjugates malaprops in Miss Vergilius Darwin's Latin class; or driving a school bus and learning about segregation - we experience flashes of recognition in moments that transcend Donald Davis's childhood stories.
