"Jason Reynolds and his best bud, Jason Griffin, had a mind-meld. And they decided to tackle it, in one fell swoop, in about ten sentences, and 300 pages of art, this piece, this contemplation-manifesto-fierce-vulnerable-gorgeous-terrifying-WhatIsWrongWithHumans-hope-filled-hopeful-searing-Eye-Poppingly-Illustrated-tender-heartbreaking-how-The-HECK-did-They-Come-UP-with-This project about oxygen. And all of the symbolism attached to that word, especially...

The author shares his views of black thought and the conditions of black life in America during the 1940's and early 1950's.

Thompson provides an ode to growing up, getting older and wiser, and learning from the school of hard knocks. He is the longest-ever-service cast member of Saturday Night Live, as well as the survivor of early 2000s television programs and movies. But Thompson is also a dad to two girls, offering advice on parenting, focusing on positivity, and having fun in life. From his biggest mistakes to his most triumphant victories, there's something here for...

"The tragedies and reckonings around racism that have rocked the country have created a specific crisis for parents and other caregivers: how do we talk to our children about it? How do we guide our children to avoid repeating our racist history? While we work to dismantle racist behaviors in ourselves and the world around us, how do we raise our children to be antiracists? After he wrote the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning,...

"The first intersectional history of the Black and Native American struggle for freedom in our country that also reframes our understanding of who was Indigenous in early America. Beginning with pre-Revolutionary America and moving into the movement for Black lives and contemporary Indigenous activism, Afro-Indigenous historian Kyle T. Mays argues that the foundations of the US are rooted in antiblackness and settler colonialism, and that these parallel...

A collection of poems in which Tracy K. Smith examines the discoveries, failures, and oddities of humans. "With allusions to David Bowie and interplanetary travel, Life on Mars imagines a soundtrack for the universe to accompany the discoveries, failures, and oddities of human existence. In these brilliant new poems, Tracy K. Smith envisions a sci-fi future sucked clean of any real dangers, contemplates the dark matter that keeps people both close...

The Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and memoirist Margo Jefferson has lived in the thrall of a cast of others--her parents and maternal grandmother, jazz luminaries, writers, artists, athletes, and stars. These are the figures who thrill and trouble her, and who have made up her sense of self as a person and as a writer. In her much-anticipated follow-up to Negroland, Jefferson brings these figures to life in a memoir of stunning originality, a performance...

"A leading voice for social justice reveals how he stopped arguing with white people who deny the ongoing legacy of racism-and offers a proven path forward for Black people and people of color based on the history of nonviolent struggle. When the rallying cry "Black Lives Matter" was heard across the world in 2013, Andre Henry was one of the millions for whom the movement caused a political awakening and a rupture in some of his closest relationships...

The distinguished scholar examines the origins and history of African-American ancestry as he profiles nineteen noted African Americans and illuminates their individual family sagas throughout U.S. history.

"In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever. This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn't always see me. As I wrote [this book], my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given...