We've all heard the one about the alligators that roam New York City's sewers, or how "Mikey" of Life Cereal fame died from eating Pop Rocks mixed with Coke. And what about the flustered parents who left their baby on the car roof, or the scuba diver who was found in the middle of a forest after a fire? These classic tall tales are featured here in all of their creepy glory along with hundreds of others, and they're guaranteed to amuse, enlighten, and intrigue, but be careful: they may stick in your mind forever.

    This is our mouth on paper, our hearts on our sleeves, our refusal to shut up and swallow our silence. These poems are tough, honest, astute, perceptive, lyrical, blunt, sad, funny, heartbreaking, and true. They shout, they curse, they whisper, and sing. But most of all, they tell it like it is.” –Tony Medina, from the Introduction

    Growing up, Thomas Chatterton Williams knew he loved three things in life: his parents, literature, and the intoxicating hip-hop culture that surrounded him. For years, he managed to juggle two disparate lifestyles, "keeping it real" in his friends' eyes and studying for the SATs under his father's strict tutelage-until it all threatened to spin out of control. Written with remarkable candor and emotional depth, Losing My Cool portrays the allure and danger of hip-hop culture with the authority of a true fan who's lived through it all, while demonstrating the saving grace of literature and the power of the bond between father and son.

    He is taken to Guantanamo Bay and held without charge, where his hopes and dreams are crushed under the cruellest of circumstances. An innocent denied his freedom at a time when Western boys are finding theirs, Khalid tries and fails to understand what's happening to him and cannot fail to be a changed young man.

     "He is the conduit between corporate America and rap and the streets-he speaks both languages." -Jay-Z "It's amazing to see the direct impact that black music, videos and the internet have had on culture. I've seen so many people race to the top of pop stardom using the everyday mannerisms of the hood in a pop setting. It's time to embrace this phenomenon because it ain't going nowhere!" -Kanye West When Fortune 500 companies need to reenergize or reinvent a lagging brand, they call Steve Stoute. In addition to marrying cultural icons with blue-chip marketers (Beyoncé for Tommy Hilfiger's True Star fragrance, and Justin Timberlake for "lovin' it" at McDonald's), Stoute has helped identify and activate a new generation of consumers. He traces how the "tanning" phenomenon raised a generation of black, Hispanic, white, and Asian consumers who have the same "mental complexion" based on shared experiences and values. This consumer is a mindset-not a race or age-that responds to shared values and experiences, rather than the increasingly irrelevant demographic boxes that have been used to a fault by corporate America. And Stoute believes there is a language gap that must be bridged in order to engage the most powerful market force in the history of commerce. The Tanning of America provides that very translation guide. Drawing from his company's case studies, as well as from extensive interviews with leading figures of multiple fields, Stoute presents an insider's view of how the transcendent power of popular culture is helping reinvigorate and revitalize the American dream. He shows how he bridges the worlds of pop culture, brand consulting, and marketing in his turnkey campaigns offers keen insight into other successful campaigns-including the election of Barack Obama-to illustrate the power of the tan generation, and how to connect with it while staying true to your core brand.

    Hip-hop has transformed theater, dance, performance, poetry, literature, fashion, design, photography, painting, and film, to become one of the most far-reaching and transformative arts movements of the past two decades.American Book Award-winning journalist Jeff Chang, author of the acclaimed Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, assembles some of the most innovative and provocative voices in hip-hop to assess the most important cultural movement of our time. It's an incisive look at hip-hop arts in the voices of the pioneers, innovators, and mavericks.With an introductory survey essay by Chang, the anthology includes: Greg Tate, Mark Anthony Neal, Brian “B+” Cross, and Vijay Prashad examining hip-hop aesthetics in the wake of multiculturalism. Joan Morgan and Mark Anthony Neal discussing gender relations in hip-hop. Hip-hop novelists Danyel Smith and Adam Mansbach on "street lit" and "lit hop". Actor, playwright, and performance artist Danny Hoch on how hip-hop defined the aesthetics of a generation. Rock Steady Crew b-boy-turned-celebrated visual artist DOZE on the uses and limits of a "hip-hop" identity. Award-winning writer Raquel Cepeda on West African cosmology and "the flash of the spirit" in hip-hop arts. Pioneer dancer POPMASTER FABEL's history of hip-hop dance, and acclaimed choreographer Rennie Harris on hip-hop's transformation of global dance theatre. Bill Adler's history of hip-hop photography, including photos by Glen E. Friedman, Janette Beckman, and Joe Conzo. Poetry and prose from Watts Prophet Father Amde Hamilton and Def Poetry Jam veterans Staceyann Chin, Suheir Hammad, Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Kevin Coval. Roundtable discussions and essays presenting hip-hop in theatre, graphic design, documentary film and video, photography, and the visual arts. “Total Chaos is Jeff Chang at his best: fierce and unwavering in his commitment to document the hip-hop explosion. In beginning to define a hip-hop aesthetic, this gathering of artists, pioneers, and thinkers illuminates the special truth that hip-hop speaks to youth around the globe.” (Bakari Kitwana, author of The Hip-Hop Generation)

    Well, sometimes. When crime's afoot, it's up to the fairy-tale detectives, Sabrina and Daphne Grimm. to investigate the case.In Book One, someone has set a giant loose on the town, and the Sisters Grimm must stop the giant and find the Everafter behind its murderous rampage. Is it Mayor Charming, formerly Prince Charming, who may have plans to get his kingdom back? Or Jack, the onetime gient killer, now working at the Big & Tall store?The mysteries continue in Book Two, when Sabrina's teacher, Mr. Grumpner, is murdered - and found dangling in a giant spiderweb. One thing's for sure: Ferryport Landing Elementary has a serious monster problem. Can the Sisters Grimm solve the crime?

    The thirteen-time Grammy Award­–winning rapper is just in his early thirties, but he’s already won the Pulitzer Prize for Music, produced and curated the soundtrack of the megahit film Black Panther, and has been named one of Time’s 100 Influential People. But what’s even more striking about the Compton-born lyricist and performer is how he’s established himself as a formidable adversary of oppression and force for change. Through his confessional poetics, his politically charged anthems, and his radical performances, Lamar has become a beacon of light for countless people. Written by veteran journalist and music critic Marcus J. Moore, this is the first biography of Kendrick Lamar. It’s the definitive account of his coming-of-age as an artist, his resurrection of two languishing genres (bebop and jazz), his profound impact on a racially fraught America, and his emergence as the bona fide King of Rap. The Butterfly Effect is the extraordinary, triumphant story of a modern lyrical prophet and an American icon who has given hope to those buckling under the weight of systemic oppression, reminding everyone that through it all—“we gon’ be alright.”

    Suddenly, the eyes of the world turned to Baltimore. In nearly 100 stunning black and white photos, Allen documents the uprising, his city, and the people who live there, revealing a world of love, courage, struggle and hope. Each photo reveals the personality, beauty and spirit of Baltimore and those who live there, as his camera complicates the stereotype of a “ghetto”. We find smiles where one might least expect them, hope doing battle against a system that sows desperation and fear, and above all, resistance, to the unrelenting pressures of racism in twenty-first-century America.““Allen’s work demonstrates a connection between resistance as a daily activity, a way of life in the ghetto, and resistance as a political act, as played out in the streets last spring. He documents resistance without judgment, without asking the usual questions that outsiders might: Is it justified? Is it effective? Is it legal? Resistance is represented not as a tactic, but as a fundamental aspect of life.”—Washington PostDevin Allen is one of the first amateur photographers to have their his work featured on the cover of Time magazine. His photographs have also appeared in New York Magazine, the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, BBC, NBC News, Aperture Magazine, and Yahoo!.

    Amateur gardener and housewife Louise Eldridge has big plans for her family's new Sylvan Valley home, situated among the flower of suburban Washington, D.C., society. Some Japanese iris here, some skunk cabbage there...and her own cozy cabin for her horticultural writings. But barely has she turned the topsoil when her organic mulching unearths the unidentifiable remains of a murder victim. Suddenly her elegant garden is a crime scene blighted by garish yellow police tape.And Louise--cultivating the rich and restless wives of the neighborhood and their hothouse secrets--must find out who has gone missing. For only then can she root out a rare species of killer who could soon be digging her grave.

    Alongside him in the traveling freak show are Medusa, the Minotaur, the Sphinx, and other classical beasts. When Corydon helps these monsters to escape their cages, they scatter to seek peace and solitude away from prying eyes. But then an army of "heroes" arrives hoping to win glory by killing the monsters, and Corydon must unite these unloved and unlikely allies to fight for their survival and for their island home.

    Sam awakens in Aurobon, a world eerily similar to his own, only to discover that his accident was part of an elaborate abduction by a ruler with a deadly agenda. Now Sam must team up with a fearless girl pilot to outwit the enemy. Otherwise, dark forces will invade his own world on insects the size of fighter jets. But that's if the terrifying marsh dogs don't kill him first.

    He only knows the witch-like old woman who snaps and snarls and eats her birthday cards. He desperately wants to make everything better, but he can't.Escaping the house one evening, Liam discovers an old stone gargoyle in a rundown church, and his life changes in impossible ways.The gargoyle is alive. It moves unseen in the night, acting out Liam's stories. And stories can be dangerous things . . .But Grandma's illness is getting worse, Liam's mum isn't coping, and his sister is skipping school.What if the gargoyle is the only thing that can save Liam's family?

    As the train chugs closer and closer to its destination, the children begin to hear terrible rumors about the lives that await them. And so they decide to change their fate the only way they know how. . . .They jump off the train.There, in the middle of the woods, they meet a boy who will transform their lives forever. His name is Alexander, and he tells them they've come to a place nobody knows about—especially not adults—and "where all children in need of freedom are accepted." It's a place called Wanderville, Alexander says, and now Jack, Frances, and Harold are its very first citizens.THE FIRST BOOK IN A HISTORICAL SERIES THAT'S PERFECT FOR COMMON CORE AND FOR FANS OF THE BOXCAR CHILDREN!

    In fact, he is his middle school’s one and only retrieval specialist. Confiscated cell phones, stolen lunch money—he’ll discretely retrieve it before the last bell rings. Business is good, and if it weren’t for the meddling of preteen private investigator Becca Mills, he’d be happier than a gym teacher on dodgeball day.But a new job shatters his comfortable lifestyle. Now, thanks to Jeremy, the master key to the schools’ lockers is in the hands of an aspiring crime kingpin who doesn’t exactly have Jeremy’s strong moral character. Soon not even combination locks can protect the students’ textbooks and jackets. Retrieving the key is too big a job for one crime fighter, and only one person wants the key returned as much as Jeremy does: Becca Mills.Lockers are being robbed, the teachers are looking for the culprit, and the only person Jeremy can turn to is the girl who most wants to see him in the principal’s office. Will Jeremy be able to trust Becca enough to get the key back in the right hands? Or could he end up in detention until the end of high school instead?