29 Best books for Black History Month
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The Hate U Give
- By: Angie Thomas
- Narrator: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 11 hours 50 minutes
- Publisher: Balzer + Bray
- Publish date: February 28, 2017
- Language: English
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4.49(655328 ratings)
4.49(655328 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USD8 starred reviews * Goodreads Choice Awards Best of the Best * William C. Morris Award Winner * National Book Award Longlist * Printz Honor Book * Coretta Scott King Honor Book * #1 New York Times Bestseller! “Absolutely riveting!”8 starred reviews * Goodreads Choice Awards Best of the Best * William C. Morris Award Winner * National Book Award Longlist * Printz Honor Book * Coretta Scott King Honor Book * #1 New York Times Bestseller!
“Absolutely riveting!” –Jason Reynolds
“Stunning.” –John Green
“This story is necessary. This story is important.” —Kirkus (starred review)
“Heartbreakingly topical.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A marvel of verisimilitude.” —Booklist (starred review)
“A powerful, in-your-face novel.” —Horn Book (starred review)
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.
Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.
But what Starr does–or does not–say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
And don’t miss On the Come Up, Angie Thomas’s powerful follow-up to The Hate U Give.
Want more of Garden Heights? Catch Maverick and Seven’s story in Concrete Rose, ngie Thomas’s powerful prequel to The Hate U Give.
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Their Eyes Were Watching God
- By: Zora Neale Hurston
- Narrator: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hours 44 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: October 31, 2005
- Language: English
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3.97(282569 ratings)
3.97(282569 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0020.99 USD“A deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don’t know how to live properly.” –Zadie Smith One of“A deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don’t know how to live properly.” –Zadie Smith
One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years–due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist–Hurston’s classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature. The audio is performed by the legendary Ruby Dee.
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Nigel and the Moon
- By: Antwan Eady
- Narrator: Anthony Cloyd
- Length: 6 minutes
- Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
- Publish date: February 15, 2022
- Language: English
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4.34(662 ratings)
4.34(662 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.002.99 USDFrom debut author Antwan Eady and artist Gracey Zhang comes a glowing tale about the young dreaming big. A perfect story to demonstrate how pride in where we come from can bring a shining confidence. When Nigel looks up at the moon, his future isFrom debut author Antwan Eady and artist Gracey Zhang comes a glowing tale about the young dreaming big. A perfect story to demonstrate how pride in where we come from can bring a shining confidence.
When Nigel looks up at the moon, his future is bright. He imagines himself as…an astronaut, a dancer, a superhero, too!
Among the stars, he twirls. With pride, his chest swells. And his eyes, they glow. Nigel is the most brilliant body in the sky.
But it’s Career Week at school, and Nigel can’t find the courage to share his dreams. It’s easy to whisper them to the moon, but not to his classmates–especially when he already feels out of place.
* A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year * Kids’ Indie Next List Pick *
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Black Boy
- By: Richard Wright
- Narrator: Peter Francis James
- Length: 15 hours 28 minutes
- Publisher: Caedmon
- Publish date: February 18, 2020
- Language: English
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4.08(47026 ratings)
4.08(47026 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0031.99 USDRichard Wright’s powerful and unforgettable memoir of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. At once an unashamed confession and a profound indictment, Black Boy is a poignant record of struggle and endurance–aRichard Wright’s powerful and unforgettable memoir of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. At once an unashamed confession and a profound indictment, Black Boy is a poignant record of struggle and endurance–a seminal literary work that illuminates our own time.
When it exploded onto the literary scene in 1945, Black Boy was both praised and condemned. Orville Prescott of the New York Times wrote that “if enough such books are written, if enough millions of people read them maybe, someday, in the fullness of time, there will be a greater understanding and a more true democracy.” Yet from 1975 to 1978, Black Boy was banned in schools throughout the United States for “obscenity” and “instigating hatred between the races.”
The once controversial, now classic American autobiography measures the brutality and rawness of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a Black boy. Enduring poverty, hunger, fear, abuse, and hatred while growing up in the woods of Mississippi, Wright lied, stole, and raged at those around him–whites indifferent, pitying, or cruel, and Blacks resentful of anyone trying to rise above their circumstances. Desperate for a different way of life, he made his way north, eventually arriving in Chicago, where he forged a new path and began his career as a writer. At the end of Black Boy, Wright sits poised with pencil in hand, determined to “hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo.” Seventy-five years later, his words continue to reverberate.
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Confessions of a Video Vixen
- By: Karrine Steffans
- Narrator: Karrine Steffans
- Length: 5 hours 42 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: June 28, 2005
- Language: English
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3.31(4153 ratings)
3.31(4153 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0021.99 USDPart tell-all, part cautionary tale, this emotionally charged memoir from a former video vixen nicknamed ‘Superhead’ goes beyond the glamour of celebrity to reveal the inner workings of the hip-hop dancer industry–from the physicalPart tell-all, part cautionary tale, this emotionally charged memoir from a former video vixen nicknamed ‘Superhead’ goes beyond the glamour of celebrity to reveal the inner workings of the hip-hop dancer industry–from the physical and emotional abuse that’s rampant in the industry, and which marked her own life–to the excessive use of drugs, sex and bling.
Once the sought-after video girl, this sexy siren has helped multi-platinum artists, such as Jay-Z, R. Kelly and LL Cool J, sell millions of albums with her sensual dancing. In a word, Karrine was H-O-T. So hot that she made as much as $2500 a day in videos and was selected by well-known film director F. Gary Gray to co-star in his film, A Man Apart, starring Vin Diesel. But the film and music video sets, swanky Hollywood and New York restaurants and trysts with the celebrities featured in the pages of People and In Touch magazines only touches the surface of Karrine Steffans’ life.
Her journey is filled with physical abuse, rape, drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness and single motherhood–all by the age of 26. By sharing her story, Steffans hopes to shed light on an otherwise romanticised industry and help young women avoid the same pitfalls she encountered. If they’re already in danger, she hopes to inspire them to find a way to dig themselves out of what she knows first-hand
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to be a cycle of hopelessness and despair. -
Cherries and Cherry Pits
- By: Vera B. Williams
- Narrator: Martha Plimpton
- Length: 12 minutes
- Publisher: Greenwillow Books
- Publish date: May 12, 2009
- Language: English
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4.16(315 ratings)
4.16(315 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.002.99 USDThis is Bidemmi’s book. Enter her world, look at the pictures she draws as she tells her stories. You will never forget her. This is Bidemmi’s book. Enter her world, look at the pictures she draws as she tells her stories. You will neverThis is Bidemmi’s book. Enter her world, look at the pictures she draws as she tells her stories. You will never forget her.
This is Bidemmi’s book. Enter her world, look at the pictures she draws as she tells her stories. You will never forget her.
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The Crossover
- By: Kwame Alexander
- Narrator: Kwame Alexander
- Length: 2 hours 16 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: July 11, 2014
- Language: English
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4.26(49673 ratings)
4.26(49673 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0010.99 USDFourteen-year-old twin basketball stars Josh and Jordan wrestle with highs and lows on and off the court as their father ignores his declining health. Review Quotes: “This novel in verse is rich in character and relationships. . . . PoetFourteen-year-old twin basketball stars Josh and Jordan wrestle with highs and lows on and off the court as their father ignores his declining health. Review Quotes: “This novel in verse is rich in character and relationships. . . . Poet Alexander deftly reveals the power of the format to pack an emotional punch.” –“Kirkus, ” starred review “Alexander fully captures Josh’s athletic finesse and coming-of-age angst in a mix of free verse and hip-hop poetry that will have broad appeal. . . . This will inspire budding players and poets alike.” –“Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, “starred review “The poems dodge and weave with the speed of a point guard driving for the basket, mixing basketball action with vocabulary-themed poems, newspaper clippings, and Josh’s sincere first-person accounts that swing from moments of swagger-worth triumph to profound pain.” –“Publishers Weekly, “starred review
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Strivers Row
- By: Kevin Baker
- Narrator: Thomas Penny
- Length: 20 hours 18 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: February 07, 2006
- Language: English
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3.73(260 ratings)
3.73(260 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0044.99 USDSummer 1943. Harlem is a never-ending carnival in the second year of the war. Yet underneath the glitter, its black residents remain second-class citizens, and the neighborhood is a tinderbox, waiting for a match. Along these restless streets, twoSummer 1943. Harlem is a never-ending carnival in the second year of the war. Yet underneath the glitter, its black residents remain second-class citizens, and the neighborhood is a tinderbox, waiting for a match.
Along these restless streets, two very different young men will cross paths. Their chance encounter will change both of their lives, and presage the battle for civil rights that is to come. Malcolm Little is a naive, cocky, troubled teenager and not yet the iconic civil rights leader Malcolm X. The Rev. Jonah Dove is the minister of one of Harlem’s greatest churches, and lives in the blocks known as Strivers Row. Their lives intersect when Malcolm rescues Jonah and his wife from a group of drunken white soldiers. For Jonah, it is a crowning indignity that brings on a crisis of faith. But Malcolm, haunted by his own past, temporarily forgets the incident and plunges ecstatically into the nightlife of Harlem — yet he finds it hollow at the core. Lonely and confused, he starts to have odd dreams and visions — the beginning of a religious conversion that will overthrow his whole world.
As race riots break out across the homefront, and Harlem slides toward the brink, Jonah and Malcolm must confront their own demons. Their next meeting, in the midst of turmoil, will lead them both to make fateful choices, for themselves and for their people.
Completing his “City of Fire” trilogy, master storyteller Kevin Baker has once again woven an epic tale set against the panoramic backdrop of a vanished New York. Bold and exciting, evocative and unique, Strivers Row sets a new standard for modern historical fiction.
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Maybe You Never Cry Again
- By: Bernie Mac
- Narrator: Bernie Mac
- Length: 4 hours 25 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: August 01, 2006
- Language: English
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4.3(466 ratings)
4.3(466 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0014.99 USDThe film, television, and comedy legend tells the hilarious and moving story of how tough love, and a sense of humor made him the man he is today By the tender age of five, Bernie Mac had found his calling: making others laugh. He has since becomeThe film, television, and comedy legend tells the hilarious and moving story of how tough love, and a sense of humor made him the man he is today
By the tender age of five, Bernie Mac had found his calling: making others laugh. He has since become the star and cocreator of Fox’s hit sitcom The Bernie Mac Show; a stand-up legend; and a hit movie star in Head of State and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. Now this amazing comedian delves deep down inside to retell the poignant and hilarious story of his childhood and the people who helped shape him into the comedian–and the strong and self-reliant man–he is today.
When young Bernie Mac lost his beloved mother to breast cancer, and faced an astounding number of other hardships, he remembered the “Mac-isms” she taught him: You have to meet all of the challenges, big and small. Because how you start is how you finish. If you want a helping hand, look at the end of your arm. These tough-love lessons gave him an inner strength that led him to choose hope over despair, and to follow his dreams. Maybe You Never Cry Again is a powerful testament to how a mother’s love made everything possible for Bernie Mac by teaching him to believe in himself.
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Gone Crazy in Alabama
- By: Rita Williams-Garcia
- Narrator: Sisi A. Johnson
- Length: 6 hours 43 minutes
- Publisher: Quill Tree Books
- Publish date: April 21, 2015
- Language: English
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4.15(3452 ratings)
4.15(3452 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0021.99 USDThe Coretta Scott King Award-winning Gone Crazy in Alabama by Newbery Honor and New York Times bestselling author Rita Williams-Garcia tells the story of the Gaither sisters as they travel from the streets of Brooklyn to the rural South for theThe Coretta Scott King Award-winning Gone Crazy in Alabama by Newbery Honor and New York Times bestselling author Rita Williams-Garcia tells the story of the Gaither sisters as they travel from the streets of Brooklyn to the rural South for the summer of a lifetime.
Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern are off to Alabama to visit their grandmother Big Ma and her mother, Ma Charles. Across the way lives Ma Charles’s half sister, Miss Trotter. The two half sisters haven’t spoken in years. As Delphine hears about her family history, she uncovers the surprising truth that’s been keeping the sisters apart. But when tragedy strikes, Delphine discovers that the bonds of family run deeper than she ever knew possible.
Powerful and humorous, this companion to the award-winning One Crazy Summer and P.S. Be Eleven will be enjoyed by fans of the first two books, as well as by readers meeting these memorable sisters for the first time.
Readers who enjoy Christopher Paul Curtis’s The Watsons Go to Birmingham and Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming will find much to love in this book. Rita Williams-Garcia’s books about Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern can also be read alongside nonfiction explorations of American history such as Jason Reynolds’s and Ibram X. Kendi’s books.
Each humorous, unforgettable story in this trilogy follows the sisters as they grow up during one of the most tumultuous eras in recent American history, the 1960s. Read the adventures of eleven-year-old Delphine and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, as they visit their kin all over the rapidly changing nation–and as they discover that the bonds of family, and their own strength, run deeper than they ever knew possible.
“The Gaither sisters are an irresistible trio. Williams-Garcia excels at conveying defining moments of American society from their point of view.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Coretta Scott King Award winner * ALA Notable Book * School Library Journal Best Book of the Year * Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year * ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice * Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year * Washington Post Best Books of the Year * The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Blue Ribbon Book * Three starred reviews * CCBC Choice * New York Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing * Amazon Best Book of the Year
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Barracoon
- By: Zora Neale Hurston
- Narrator: Robin Miles
- Length: 3 hours 50 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: May 08, 2018
- Language: English
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4.02(20698 ratings)
4.02(20698 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0018.99 USDA major literary event: a never-before-published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God that brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last knownA major literary event: a never-before-published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God that brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade–abducted from Africa on the last “Black Cargo” ship to arrive in the United States.
In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo’s firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.
In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo’s past–memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.
Based on those interviews, featuring Cudjo’s unique vernacular, and written from Hurston’s perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent American authors of the twentieth-century, Barracoon brilliantly illuminates the tragedy of slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.
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Uncle Tom’s Cabin
- By: Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Narrator: Bobbie Frohman
- Length: 1 hours 42 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2014
- Language: English
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3.9(6 ratings)
3.9(6 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.005.99 USDBased on the classic 1852 novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe re-tells the story to allow young readers a glimpse into the darker side of American history. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the bestselling novel of the 1800s and had anBased on the classic 1852 novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe re-tells the story to allow young readers a glimpse into the darker side of American history.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the bestselling novel of the 1800s and had an enormous influence in galvanizing public opinion against slavery. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the story of two slaves who’s master must sell them to settle his debts. Uncle Tom is sold “down the river,” away from his wife and children, and Eliza decides to escape. Uncle Tom has a great faith in God and is a righteous man, but he is sorely tested when he is sold to a sadist owner named Simon Legree.
Does Eliza make it to Canada? Will Uncle Tom survive Simon Legree’s villainy? Uncle Tom’s Cabin will keep you riveted to the end.
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The Outsider
- By: Stephen King
- Narrator: Will Patton
- Length: 18 hours 41 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2018
- Language: English
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4(183962 ratings)
4(183962 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.99 USDNow an HBO limited series starring Ben Mendelsohn! Evil has many faces…maybe even yours in this #1 New York Times bestseller from master storyteller Stephen King. An eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is discovered in a town park.Now an HBO limited series starring Ben Mendelsohn!
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Evil has many faces…maybe even yours in this #1 New York Times bestseller from master storyteller Stephen King.
An eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is discovered in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens–Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon have DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.
As the investigation expands and horrifying details begin to emerge, King’s story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can. -
All Aunt Hagar’s Children
- By: Edward P. Jones
- Narrator: Peter Francis James
- Length: 15 hours 1 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: August 29, 2006
- Language: English
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3.81(1811 ratings)
3.81(1811 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.004.99 USDIn fourteen sublime stories, the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Known World shows that his grasp of the human condition is firmer than ever. Returning to the city that inspired his first prizewinning book, Lost in the City,In fourteen sublime stories, the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Known World shows that his grasp of the human condition is firmer than ever.
Returning to the city that inspired his first prizewinning book, Lost in the City, Jones has filled this new collection with people who call Washington, D.C., home. Yet it is not the city’s power brokers that most concern him but rather its ordinary citizens. All Aunt Hagar’s Children turns an unflinching eye to the men, women, and children caught between the old ways of the South and the temptations that await them in the city, people who in Jones’s masterful hands, emerge as fully human and morally complex, whether they are country folk used to getting up with the chickens or people with centuries of education behind them. With the legacy of slavery just a stone’s throw behind them and the future uncertain, Jones’s cornucopia of characters will haunt readers for years to come.
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Balm
- By: Dolen Perkins-Valdez
- Narrator: Lisa Renee Pitts
- Length: 9 hours 14 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: May 26, 2015
- Language: English
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3.37(1218 ratings)
3.37(1218 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDThe New York Times bestselling author of Wench returns to the Civil War era to explore the next chapter of history–the trauma of the War and the end of slavery–in this powerful story of love and healing about three people who struggle toThe New York Times bestselling author of Wench returns to the Civil War era to explore the next chapter of history–the trauma of the War and the end of slavery–in this powerful story of love and healing about three people who struggle to overcome the pain of the past and define their own future.
The Civil War has ended, and Madge, Sadie, and Hemp have each come to Chicago in search of a new life.
Born with magical hands, Madge has the power to discern others’ suffering, but she cannot heal her own damaged heart. To mend herself and help those in need, she must return to Tennessee to face the women healers who rejected her as a child.
Sadie can commune with the dead, but until she makes peace with her father, she, too, cannot fully engage her gift.
Searching for his missing family, Hemp arrives in this northern city that shimmers with possibility. But redemption cannot be possible until he is reunited with those taken from him.
In the bitter aftermath of a terrible, bloody war, as a divided nation tries to come together once again, Madge, Sadie, and Hemp will be caught up in a desperate, unexpected battle for survival in a community desperate to lay the pain of the past to rest.
Beautiful in its historical atmosphere and emotional depth, Balm is a stirring novel of love, loss, hope, and reconciliation set during one of the most critical periods in American history.
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Lazaretto
- By: Diane McKinney-Whetstone
- Narrator: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 12 hours 30 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: April 12, 2016
- Language: English
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3.75(749 ratings)
3.75(749 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDDiane McKinney-Whetstone’s nationally bestselling novel, Tumbling, immersed us into Philadelphia’s black community during the Civil Rights era, and she returns to the city in this new historical novel about a cast of nineteenth-centuryDiane McKinney-Whetstone’s nationally bestselling novel, Tumbling, immersed us into Philadelphia’s black community during the Civil Rights era, and she returns to the city in this new historical novel about a cast of nineteenth-century characters whose colorful lives intersect at the legendary Lazaretto–America’s first quarantine hospital.
Isolated on an island where two rivers meet, the Lazaretto quarantine hospital is the first stop for immigrants who wish to begin new lives in Philadelphia. The Lazaretto’s black live-in staff forge a strong social community, and when one of them receives permission to get married on the island the mood is one of celebration, particularly since the white staff–save the opium-addicted doctor–are given leave for the weekend. On the eve of the ceremony, a gunshot rings out across the river. A white man has fired at a boat carrying the couple’s friends and family to the island, and the captain is injured. His life lies in the hands of Sylvia, the Lazaretto’s head nurse, who is shocked to realize she knows the patient.
Intertwined with the drama unfolding at the Lazaretto are the fates of orphan brothers. When one brother commits a crime to protect the other, he imperils both of their lives–and the consequences ultimately deliver both of them to the Lazaretto.
In this masterful work of historical fiction, Diane McKinney-Whetstone seamlessly transports us to Philadelphia in the aftermath of the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination, beautifully evoking powerful stories of love, friendship and humanity amid the vibrant black community that flourished amid the troubled times.
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Sisters in Arms
- By: Kaia Alderson
- Narrator: Shayna Small
- Length: 11 hours 7 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: August 03, 2021
- Language: English
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3.67(4765 ratings)
3.67(4765 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.004.99 USDKaia Alderson’s debut historical fiction novel reveals the untold, true story of the Six Triple Eight, the only all-Black battalion of the Women’s Army Corps, who made the dangerous voyage to Europe to ensure American servicemen receivedKaia Alderson’s debut historical fiction novel reveals the untold, true story of the Six Triple Eight, the only all-Black battalion of the Women’s Army Corps, who made the dangerous voyage to Europe to ensure American servicemen received word from their loved ones during World War II.
Grace Steele and Eliza Jones may be from completely different backgrounds, but when it comes to the army, specifically the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), they are both starting from the same level. Not only will they be among the first class of female officers the army has even seen, they are also the first Black women allowed to serve.
As these courageous women help to form the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, they are dealing with more than just army bureaucracy–everyone is determined to see this experiment fail. For two northern women, learning to navigate their way through the segregated army may be tougher than boot camp. Grace and Eliza know that there is no room for error; they must be more perfect than everyone else.
When they finally make it overseas, to England and then France, Grace and Eliza will at last be able to do their parts for the country they love, whatever the risk to themselves.
Based on the true story of the 6888th Postal Battalion (the Six Triple Eight), Sisters in Arms explores the untold story of what life was like for the only all-Black, female U.S. battalion to be deployed overseas during World War II.
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Dread Nation
- By: Justina Ireland
- Narrator: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 11 hours 56 minutes
- Publisher: Balzer + Bray
- Publish date: April 03, 2018
- Language: English
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4.14(25794 ratings)
4.14(25794 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDNew York Times bestseller * Six starred reviews At once provocative, terrifying, and darkly subversive, Dread Nation is Justina Ireland’s stunning vision of an America both foreign and familiar–a country on the brink, at the explosiveNew York Times bestseller * Six starred reviews
At once provocative, terrifying, and darkly subversive, Dread Nation is Justina Ireland’s stunning vision of an America both foreign and familiar–a country on the brink, at the explosive crossroads where race, humanity, and survival meet.
Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania–derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever.
In this new America, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead.
But there are also opportunities–and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It’s a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations.
But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose.
But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies.
And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.
“Abundant action, thoughtful worldbuilding, and a brave, smart, and skillfully drawn cast entertain as Ireland illustrates the ignorance and immorality of racial discrimination and examines the relationship between equality and freedom.” (Publishers Weekly, “An Anti-Racist Children’s and YA Reading List”)
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Southern Cross the Dog
- By: Bill Cheng
- Narrator: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 10 hours 18 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: May 07, 2013
- Language: English
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3.17(1112 ratings)
3.17(1112 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.004.99 USDAn epic odyssey in which a young man must choose between the lure of the future and the claims of the past With clouds looming ominously on the horizon, a group of children play among the roots of the gnarled Bone Tree. Their games will beAn epic odyssey in which a young man must choose between the lure of the future and the claims of the past
With clouds looming ominously on the horizon, a group of children play among the roots of the gnarled Bone Tree. Their games will be interrupted by a merciless storm-bringing with it the Great Flood of 1927-but not before Robert Chatham shares his first kiss with the beautiful young Dora. The flood destroys their homes, disperses their families, and wrecks their innocence. But for Robert, a boy whose family has already survived unspeakable pain, that single kiss will sustain him for years to come.
Losing virtually everything in the storm’s aftermath, Robert embarks on a journey through the Mississippi hinterland-from a desperate refugee camp to the fiery brothel Hotel Beau-Miel and into the state’s fearsome swamp, meeting piano-playing hustlers, well-intentioned whores, and a family of fierce and wild fur trappers along the way. But trouble follows close on his heels, fueling Robert’s conviction that he’s marked by the devil and nearly destroying his will to survive. And just when he seems to shake off his demons, he’s forced to make an impossible choice that will test him as never before.
Teeming with language that voices both the savage beauty and the complex humanity of the American South, Southern Cross the Dog is a tour de force of literary imagination that heralds the arrival of a major new voice in fiction.
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African and African-American Religions
- By: Victor Anderson
- Narrator: Ben Kingsley
- Length: 2 hours 57 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2006
- Language: English
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3.53(26 ratings)
3.53(26 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0011.95 USDSome thirty to forty percent of Africans practice traditional religions, many of which survived transportation into the West with the slave trade by combining with elements of Christianity. These traditional religions are often distinguished bySome thirty to forty percent of Africans practice traditional religions, many of which survived transportation into the West with the slave trade by combining with elements of Christianity. These traditional religions are often distinguished by dramatic features, including masks, costumes, dancing and singing; they emphasize oral traditions rather than literary scriptures; and they include magical components such as sacrifices and spirit mediums. They affirm that all reality flows from one substance or principle, which manifests in many different gods and values; gods, therefore, are both good and evil. A “trickster” deity often expresses this fundamental ambiguity of life.
The Religion, Scriptures, and Spirituality Series describes the beliefs, religious practices, and the spiritual and moral commitments of the world’s great religious traditions. It also describes a religion’s way of understanding scripture, identifies its outstanding thinkers, and discusses its attitude and relationship to society.
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Sounder
- By: William H. Armstrong
- Narrator: Avery Brooks
- Length: 2 hours 21 minutes
- Publisher: HarperCollins
- Publish date: January 03, 2006
- Language: English
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3.97(28203 ratings)
3.97(28203 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0011.99 USDThe Newbery Medal-winning classic novel about the courage and faith–and the love of a dog–that give a family strength in the face of inhumanity. The boy knows that times are tough for his family. Every night, his father goes out huntingThe Newbery Medal-winning classic novel about the courage and faith–and the love of a dog–that give a family strength in the face of inhumanity.
The boy knows that times are tough for his family. Every night, his father goes out hunting with their great coon dog, Sounder, to try to put food on the table. But even with the little they bring back, there is still never enough for the family to eat.
When the boy awakens one morning to a sweet-smelling ham on the table, it seems like a blessing. But soon, the sheriff and his deputies come to the house and take the boy’s father away in handcuffs. Suddenly the boy must grow up fast in a world that isn’t fair, keeping hope alive through the love he has for his father’s faithful dog, Sounder.
Readers who enjoy timeless dog stories such as Old Yeller and Where the Red Fern Grows will find much to love in Sounder, even as they read through tears at times.
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Hidden Figures
- By: Margot Lee Shetterly
- Narrator: Robin Miles
- Length: 10 hours 47 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: September 06, 2016
- Language: English
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3.97(82190 ratings)
3.97(82190 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDThe phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America’s greatest achievements in space. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae,The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America’s greatest achievements in space. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kirsten Dunst, and Kevin Costner.
Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.
Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South’s segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America’s aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam’s call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory.
Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley’s all-black “West Computing” group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens.
Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Space Race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades they faced challenges, forged alliances and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country’s future.
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Bound for Canaan
- By: Fergus Bordewich
- Narrator: Peter J. Fernandez
- Length: 19 hours 31 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: June 07, 2016
- Language: English
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4.19(656 ratings)
4.19(656 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0034.99 USDAn important book of epic scope on America’s first racially integrated, religiously inspired movement for change The civil war brought to a climax the country’s bitter division. But the beginnings of slavery’s denouement can beAn important book of epic scope on America’s first racially integrated, religiously inspired movement for change
The civil war brought to a climax the country’s bitter division. But the beginnings of slavery’s denouement can be traced to a courageous band of ordinary Americans, black and white, slave and free, who joined forces to create what would come to be known as the Underground Railroad, a movement that occupies as romantic a place in the nation’s imagination as the Lewis and Clark expedition. The true story of the Underground Railroad is much more morally complex and politically divisive than even the myths suggest. Against a backdrop of the country’s westward expansion arose a fierce clash of values that was nothing less than a war for the country’s soul. Not since the American Revolution had the country engaged in an act of such vast and profound civil disobedience that not only challenged prevailing mores but also subverted federal law.
Bound for Canaan tells the stories of men and women like David Ruggles, who invented the black underground in New York City; bold Quakers like Isaac Hopper and Levi Coffin, who risked their lives to build the Underground Railroad; and the inimitable Harriet Tubman. Interweaving thrilling personal stories with the politics of slavery and abolition, Bound for Canaan shows how the Underground Railroad gave birth to this country’s first racially integrated, religiously inspired movement for social change.
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African Founders
- By: David Hackett Fischer
- Narrator: Lamarr Gulley
- Length: 35 hours 55 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2022
- Language: English
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4.09(91 ratings)
4.09(91 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0039.99 USDIn this sweeping, foundational work, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Hackett Fischer draws on extensive research to show how enslaved Africans and their descendants enlarged American ideas of freedom in varying ways in different regions ofIn this sweeping, foundational work, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Hackett Fischer draws on extensive research to show how enslaved Africans and their descendants enlarged American ideas of freedom in varying ways in different regions of the early United States.
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African Founders explores the little-known history of how enslaved people from different regions of Africa interacted with colonists of European origins to create new regional cultures in the colonial United States. The Africans brought with them linguistic skills, novel techniques of animal husbandry and farming, and generations-old ethical principles, among other attributes. This startling history reveals how much our country was shaped by these African influences in its early years, producing a new, distinctly American culture.
Drawing on decades of research, some of it in western Africa, Fischer recreates the diverse regional life that shaped the early American republic. He shows that there were varieties of slavery in America and varieties of new American culture, from Puritan New England to Dutch New York, Quaker Pennsylvania, cavalier Virginia, coastal Carolina, and Louisiana and Texas.
This landmark work of history will transform our understanding of America’s origins. -
The Bone and Sinew of the Land
- By: Anna-Lisa Cox
- Narrator: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 8 hours 12 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2018
- Language: English
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3.87(252 ratings)
3.87(252 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDThe long-hidden truth about America’s black pioneers, the frontier they settled, and their fight for a better nation The American frontier is one of our most cherished and enduring national images. We think of the early pioneers who settledThe long-hidden truth about America’s black pioneers, the frontier they settled, and their fight for a better nation
The American frontier is one of our most cherished and enduring national images. We think of the early pioneers who settled the wilderness as courageous, independent–and white.
This version of history is simply wrong. Starting in our nation’s earliest years, thousands of free African Americans were building hundreds of settlements in the Northwest Territory, a territory that banned slavery and gave equal voting rights to all men. This groundbreaking work of research reveals the lost history of the nation’s first Great Migration. Though forgotten today, these pioneers were a matter of national importance at the time; their mere existence leading to fierce political movements and battles that tore families and communities apart long before the Civil War erupted.
The Bone and Sinew of the Land is a story with its roots in the ideals of the American Revolution, a story of courageous pioneers transformed by the belief that all men are created equal, seeking a brighter future on the American frontier.
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Faces at the Bottom of the Well
- By: Derrick Bell
- Narrator: Brad Raymond
- Length: 8 hours 22 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: October 30, 2018
- Language: English
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4.36(1047 ratings)
4.36(1047 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.98 USDThe classic work on American racism and the struggle for racial justice In Faces at the Bottom of the Well, civil rights activist and legal scholar Derrick Bell uses allegory and historical example to argue that racism is an integral and permanentThe classic work on American racism and the struggle for racial justice
In Faces at the Bottom of the Well, civil rights activist and legal scholar Derrick Bell uses allegory and historical example to argue that racism is an integral and permanent part of American society. African American struggles for equality are doomed to fail so long as the majority of whites do not see their own well-being threatened by the status quo. Bell calls on African Americans to face up to this unhappy truth and abandon a misplaced faith in inevitable progress. Only then will blacks, and those whites who join with them, be in a position to create viable strategies to alleviate the burdens of racism. “Freed of the stifling rigidity of relying unthinkingly on the slogan ‘we shall overcome,'” he writes, “we are impelled both to live each day more fully and to examine critically the actual effectiveness of traditional civil rights remedies.”
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Devil in the Grove
- By: Gilbert King
- Narrator: Peter Francis James
- Length: 17 hours 53 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: May 22, 2013
- Language: English
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4.39(10075 ratings)
4.39(10075 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0034.99 USDWinner of the Pulitzer Prize “A must-read, cannot-put-down history.” — Thomas Friedman, New York Times Arguably the most important American lawyer of the twentieth century, Thurgood Marshall was on the verge of bringing theWinner of the Pulitzer Prize
“A must-read, cannot-put-down history.” — Thomas Friedman, New York Times
Arguably the most important American lawyer of the twentieth century, Thurgood Marshall was on the verge of bringing the landmark suit Brown v. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court when he became embroiled in a case that threatened to change the course of the civil rights movement and cost him his life.
In 1949, Florida’s orange industry was booming, and citrus barons got rich on the backs of cheap Jim Crow labor with the help of Sheriff Willis V. McCall, who ruled Lake County with murderous resolve. When a white seventeen-year-old girl cried rape, McCall pursued four young black men who dared envision a future for themselves beyond the groves. The Ku Klux Klan joined the hunt, hell-bent on lynching the men who came to be known as “the Groveland Boys.”
Associates thought it was suicidal for Marshall to wade into the “Florida Terror,” but the young lawyer would not shrink from the fight despite continuous death threats against him.
Drawing on a wealth of never-before-published material, including the FBI’s unredacted Groveland case files, as well as unprecedented access to the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund files, Gilbert King shines new light on this remarkable civil rights crusader.
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Strivers Row
- By: Kevin Baker
- Narrator: Thomas Penny
- Length: 20 hours 18 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: February 07, 2006
- Language: English
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3.73(260 ratings)
3.73(260 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0044.99 USDSummer 1943. Harlem is a never-ending carnival in the second year of the war. Yet underneath the glitter, its black residents remain second-class citizens, and the neighborhood is a tinderbox, waiting for a match. Along these restless streets, twoSummer 1943. Harlem is a never-ending carnival in the second year of the war. Yet underneath the glitter, its black residents remain second-class citizens, and the neighborhood is a tinderbox, waiting for a match.
Along these restless streets, two very different young men will cross paths. Their chance encounter will change both of their lives, and presage the battle for civil rights that is to come. Malcolm Little is a naive, cocky, troubled teenager and not yet the iconic civil rights leader Malcolm X. The Rev. Jonah Dove is the minister of one of Harlem’s greatest churches, and lives in the blocks known as Strivers Row. Their lives intersect when Malcolm rescues Jonah and his wife from a group of drunken white soldiers. For Jonah, it is a crowning indignity that brings on a crisis of faith. But Malcolm, haunted by his own past, temporarily forgets the incident and plunges ecstatically into the nightlife of Harlem — yet he finds it hollow at the core. Lonely and confused, he starts to have odd dreams and visions — the beginning of a religious conversion that will overthrow his whole world.
As race riots break out across the homefront, and Harlem slides toward the brink, Jonah and Malcolm must confront their own demons. Their next meeting, in the midst of turmoil, will lead them both to make fateful choices, for themselves and for their people.
Completing his “City of Fire” trilogy, master storyteller Kevin Baker has once again woven an epic tale set against the panoramic backdrop of a vanished New York. Bold and exciting, evocative and unique, Strivers Row sets a new standard for modern historical fiction.
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Night Wherever We Go
- By: Tracey Rose Peyton
- Narrator: Karen Chilton
- Length: 8 hours 28 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: January 03, 2023
- Language: English
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4.18(262 ratings)
4.18(262 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDA RECOMMENDED READ FROM: The Washington Post * Atlanta Journal-Constitution * CrimeReads * Library Journal A gripping, radically intimate debut novel about a group of enslaved women staging a covert rebellion against their owners On a strugglingA RECOMMENDED READ FROM: The Washington Post * Atlanta Journal-Constitution * CrimeReads * Library Journal
A gripping, radically intimate debut novel about a group of enslaved women staging a covert rebellion against their owners
On a struggling Texas plantation, six enslaved women slip from their sleeping quarters and gather in the woods under the cover of night. The Lucys–as they call the plantation owners, after Lucifer himself–have decided to turn around the farm’s bleak financial prospects by making the women bear children. They have hired a “stockman” to impregnate them. But the women are determined to protect themselves.
Now each of the six faces a choice. Nan, the doctoring woman, has brought a sack of cotton root clippings that can stave off children when chewed daily. If they all take part, the Lucys may give up and send the stockman away. But a pregnancy for any of them will only encourage the Lucys further. And should their plan be discovered, the consequences will be severe.
Visceral and arresting, Night Wherever We Go illuminates each woman’s individual trials and desires while painting a subversive portrait of collective defiance. Unflinching in her portrayal of America’s gravest injustices, while also deeply attentive to the transcendence, love, and solidarity of women whose interior lives have been underexplored, Tracey Rose Peyton creates a story of unforgettable power.
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Cliff Weitzman
Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.
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