The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois


Honorée Fanonne Jeffers - 2021
    The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the Problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s Problem on her shoulders.Ailey is reared in the north in the City but spends summers in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta, where her mother’s family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that’s made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma, as well as the whispers of women—her mother, Belle, her sister, Lydia, and a maternal line reaching back two centuries—that urge Ailey to succeed in their stead.To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family’s past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors—Indigenous, Black, and white—in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story—and the song—of America itself.

Mind Platter


Najwa Zebian - 2016
    To the sun in you, don’t be afraid to shine. To the love in you, don’t be afraid to heal. To the ocean in you, don’t be afraid to rage. To the silence in you, don’t be afraid to break.   Mind Platter is a compilation of reflections on life through the eyes of an educator, student and human who experienced most of life in silence. It is written in the words of a person who came from Lebanon to Canada at the age of sixteen and experienced what it was like to have fate push you to a place where you don't belong. It is written in the voice of every person who ever felt unheard, mistreated, misjudged or unseen. Mind Platter contains around 200 one-page entries as reflections on different topics that we encounter in our everyday lives; love, friendship, hurt, inspiration, respect, wholeheartedness, motivation, integrity, honesty and more. Mind Platter is not about the words that are in it, but about what the reader makes of them. This book does not only belong to me. It belongs to everyone whose path crossed mine. Had my journey not have been what it was, with every story and every detail, I would not be the same person today. May this book give a voice to those who need one, be a crying shoulder for those who need someone to listen, and inspire those who need a reminder of the power that they have over their lives. For the full story, please visit: http://misszebian.edublogs.org/2015/1...

The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off!: Thoughts on Life, Love, and Rebellion


Gloria Steinem - 2019
    From her early days as a journalist and feminist activist, Steinem's words have helped generations to empower themselves and work together.Covering topics from relationships ("Many are looking for the right person. Too few are trying to be the right person.") to the patriarchy ("Men are liked better when they win. Women are liked better when they lose. This is how the patriarchy is enforced every day.") and activism ("Revolutions, like trees, grow from the bottom up."), this is the definitive collection of Steinem's words on what matters most. Steinem sees quotes as "the poetry of everyday life," so she also has included a few favorites from friends, including bell hooks, Flo Kennedy, and Michelle Obama, in this book that will make you want to laugh, march, and create some quotes of your own. In fact, at the end of the book, there's a special space for readers to add their own quotes and others they've found inspiring. The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off! is both timeless and timely. It is a gift of hope from Steinem to readers, and a book to share with friends.

My Hair is Magic!


M.L. Marroquin - 2020
    When people ask, “Why is your hair so BIG?” she answers, “Why isn’t yours?” Her hair is soft, it protects her, it’s both gentle and fierce. While some might worry about how it’s different and try to contain it, she gives it the freedom to be so extraordinary it almost has a life of its own.Told in bold verse and vivid, fantastical illustrations, these critical questions will ring familiar, and the proud, confident answers show that what really matters is how readers see themselves.

Selections from Leaves of Grass


Walt Whitman - 1961
    With an introduction by Walter Lowenfels.

New American Best Friend


Olivia Gatwood - 2017
    Gatwood's poems deftly deconstruct traditional stereotypes. The focus shifts from childhood to adulthood, gender to sexuality, violence to joy. And always and inexorably, the book moves toward celebration, culminating in a series of odes: odes to the body, to tough women, to embracing your own journey in all its failures and triumphs.

The Odyssey + 7 Free Bonus works: The Iliad Of Homer, Paradise Lost, The Golden Ass, Oedipus The King, Oedipus At Colonus, Antigone, The Aeneid


Homer - 2015
    It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War. In his absence, it is assumed he has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage. In this Book you will also find 7 Bonus works for your enjoymentThe complete interactive table of content includes:THE ODYSSEYBonus book: THE ILIAD OF HOMERMore free Bonuses PARADISE LOST-by John MiltonTHE GOLDEN ASS-by Lucius Apuleius "Africanus"PLAYS OF SOPHOCLES•OEDIPUS THE KING • OEDIPUS AT COLONUS • ANTIGONETHE AENEID-by VirgilAll in one book elegantly formatted for ease of use and enjoyment on your Kindle device. Enjoy!

us.: a collection of poetry


Kiana Azizian - 2017
    This book is written for those who are searching for a little healing. Love is everywhere, but you must let go of the pain before you can feel its magic.

Nobody Owns the Sky: The Story of "Brave Bessie" Coleman


Reeve Lindbergh - 1996
    But she never let her dream die and became the first licensed African-American aviator. Reeve Lindbergh honors her memory with a poem that sings of her accomplishment. With bold illustrations by Pamela Paparone, NOBODY OWNS THE SKY will inspire readers to follow their dreams.

Beowulf: A New Translation


Maria Dahvana Headley - 2020
    A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. These familiar components of the epic poem are seen with a novelist’s eye toward gender, genre, and history. Beowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment — of powerful men seeking to become more powerful and one woman seeking justice for her child — but this version brings new context to an old story. While crafting her contemporary adaptation, Headley unearthed significant shifts lost over centuries of translation; her Beowulf is one for the twenty-first century.

Clarity & Connection


Yung Pueblo - 2019
     In The Love Between Us, Yung Pueblo describes how intense emotions accumulate in our subconscious and condition us to act and react in certain ways. In his characteristically spare, poetic style, he guides readers through the excavation and release of the past that’s required for growth.

Literally Show Me a Healthy Person


Darcie Wilder - 2017
    Blurring the lines of the written word, literally show me a healthy person is a portrait of a young girl, or woman, or something; grappling with the immediate and seemingly endless urge to document and describe herself and the world around her. Dealing with the aftermath of her mother's death, her father's neglect, and the chaotic unspoken expectations around her, this novel is a beating heart at the intersection of literature, poetry, and the internet. Darcie Wilder elevates and applies direct pressure, but the wound never stops bleeding.

Innocents and Others


Dana Spiotta - 2016
    Meadow makes challenging documentaries; Carrie makes successful feature films with a feminist slant. The two friends have everything in common - except their views on sex, power, movie-making and morality. And yet their loyalty trumps their different approaches to film and to life. Until, one day, a mysterious woman with a unique ability to cold-call and seduce powerful men over the phone - not through sex, but through listening - becomes the subject of one of Meadow's documentaries. Her downfall, and what makes her so extraordinarily moving, is that she pretends to be someone she is not.

Beautiful Mistakes


R.J. Avenira - 2018
    it expands from the brutal honesty of his last book to look the darkness of life & heartbreak in the eyes and swear to move on. this is a journey of love, heartbreak, hope, and healing.

Love Is a Stranger


Rumi - 1993
    His poems of spiritual love still speak directly to our hearts after more than seven hundred years. These classic selections contemplate separation and longing, intoxication and bliss, union and transcendence.