Showing results by narrator "Karen Chilton" in All Categories

James, Rhondell, Sharice, and Marcel are four inner-city students on a quest to build the world’s largest tetrahedron with their math teacher, Mr. Collins. If they succeed, maybe Rhondell will make new friends, Sharice’s foster mother may start to care, James will discover something he’s good at, and Marcel’s dad will finally see that there is more to life than barbecue. Maybe they’ll even end up in the Guinness Book of World Records!

When Lizzie McDuffie, maid to Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt, boldly proclaimed herself FDR’s “Secretary-On-Colored-People’s-Affairs,” she became more than just a maid—she became the President’s eyes and ears into the Black community. After joining the White House to work alongside her husband, FDR’s personal valet, Lizzie managed to become completely indispensable to the Roosevelt family. Never shy about pointing out injustices, she advocated for the needs and rights of her fellow African Americans when those in the White House blocked access to the President.

Arden Highmore was living your average postgrad life in Rochester, New York, when someone flipped the “off” switch on the world. No cell phones, no power, no running water - and no one knows why. All she and her roommate, John, know for sure is that they have to get out, stat. His family’s cabin near the Canadian border seemed like the safest choice. It turns out isolation doesn’t necessarily equal safety.

The collection contains 12 provocative tales that explore the emotional and mental terrain of a diverse cast of characters, from the innocent to the insane. In each, Jones displays her unflinching ability to dive into the most treacherous of psyches and circumstances: the title story examines the identity and relationship conundrums of a Black man who can pass for white, earning him the name “White Rat” as an infant; “The Women” follows a girl whose mother brings a line of female lovers to live in their home.

Our ancestors gathered around a fire in a circle, families gather around their kitchen tables in circles, and now we are gathering in circles as communities to solve problems. This peacemaking practice draws on the ancient Native American tradition of a talking piece and combines that with concepts of democracy and inclusivity.

Can an overworked teacher possibly turn an unruly incident with students into an opportunity for learning, growth, and community-building? If restorative justice has been able to salvage lives within the world of criminal behavior, why shouldn't its principles be applied in school classrooms and cafeterias? And if our children learn restorative practices early and daily, won't we be building a healthier, more just society? Two educators answer yes, yes, and yes in this new addition to The Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding series. Amstutz and Mullet offer applications and models.

In this updated edition of his authoritative book, MIT atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel outlines the basic science of global warming and how the current consensus has emerged. Although it is impossible to predict exactly when the most dramatic effects of global warming will be felt, he argues, we can be confident that we face real dangers. Emanuel warns that global warming will contribute to an increase in the intensity and power of hurricanes and flooding and more rapidly advancing deserts.

After being shot ten times by her fiancé and left for dead, Katrina Brownlee miraculously survived and became a decorated NYPD detective, a mentor, and founder of a nonprofit support group for at-risk women.

Don’t Tell a Soul is best-selling author Tiffany L. Warren’s sequel to her fan-favorite novel What a Sista Should Do. Here, a trio of faithful friends face trials in their personal lives. When Pam’s husband, Troy, blows their fortune, his partner starts making moves on Pam. Meanwhile, Taylor must decide whether to forgive her ex, Luke, for the sake of their son. And newly divorced Yvonne finds reprieve from her loneliness by befriending a new church member. But only time will tell if the women can keep their faith and friendship intact.

Opal Lee grew up as a Black girl in Texas at a time when Black and white people were kept separate and Black people had fewer opportunities than white people did. She knew that this wasn’t right, and she grew up to be a teacher and a community leader, determined to help create a better future for all people. A big part of her work and life was making Juneteenth a national holiday to mark the end of enslavement for Black Americans. She loved this day as both a celebration and as a way of teaching about the past.

For nine-year-old Lorraine Jackson, the Sanitation Strike of 1968 hit close to home. Lorraine marched with her daddy and other sanitation workers through the streets of Memphis fighting for equal rights and safer working conditions. With her mother, she boycotted stores. Lorraine’s life was forever changed when she heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preach his famous sermon “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” to the tired and frustrated strikers. Dr. King was tragically killed the next day, and hope seemed shattered.

A 300-year-old tree has plenty to do: repairing the damage to her bark from people who have carved their initials, drinking from her roots, and, lately, tolerating two lonely bookworms who visit separately. Playing matchmaker might solve everyone’s problems. Rebecca Sky is an award-winning writer best known for the Love Curse series with more than 20 million reads online; most recently her work can be found in the Every Body Shines body-positivity anthology with Bloomsbury.

The Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina, have been highly revered figures in American history, lauded for leaving behind their lives as elite slave-owning women on a plantation in South Carolina to become firebrand abolitionists in the North. Yet the focus on their story has obscured the experiences of their Black relatives, the progeny of their brother, Henry, and one of the enslaved people he owned, a woman named Nancy Weston.

It’s 1957, and after leaving the only home she has ever known, Alice Young steps off the bus into the all-Black town of New Jessup, Alabama, where residents have largely rejected integration as the means for Black social advancement. Instead, they seek to maintain, and fortify, the community they cherish on their “side of the woods.” In this place, Alice falls in love with Raymond Campbell, whose clandestine organizing activities challenge New Jessup’s longstanding status quo and could lead to the young couple’s expulsion—or worse—from the home they both hold dear.

Black history begins thousands of years ago with the many cultures and people of the African continent. Through portraits of ten heroic figures, author Tracey Baptiste takes listeners on a journey across Africa to meet some of the great leaders and thinkers whose vision built a continent and shaped the world.

There is an African proverb, “Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi,” which translates as “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.” This is why we continue to remember the tales of struggle and tales of perseverance, even as we look to tales of hope. What a people choose to remember about their past, the stories they pass down, informs who they are and sets the boundaries of their identity. We remember the pain of our past to mourn, to heal, and to learn. Only in that way can we ensure the same mistakes are not repeated.

As the civil rights movement and the fight for voter rights unfold in Selma, Alabama, many things happen inside and outside the Brown family’s home that do not have anything to do with the landmark 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Yet the famous outrages which unfold on that span form an inescapable backdrop in this collection of stories. In one, Willie Mae takes it upon herself to offer summer babysitting services to a glamorous single white mother—a secret she keeps from her parents that unravels with shocking results.

An intimate look at the domestic lives of enslaved women, Night Wherever We Go is an evocative meditation on resistance and autonomy, on love and transcendence and the bonds of female friendship in the darkest of circumstances.

Like all great dreamers and planners, Marcus Garvey dreamed and planned ahead of his time and his peoples' ability to understand the significance of his life's work. A set of circumstances, mostly created by the world colonial powers, crushed this dreamer, but not his dreams. Due to persistence and years of sacrifice of Mrs. Amy Jacques Garvey, widow of Marcus Garvey, a large body of work by and about this great nationalist leader has been preserved and can be made available to a new generation of Black people who have the power to turn his dreams into realities.

One of the best-known poets of the Revolutionary War era, Phillis Wheatley made history with this collection, which was the first such work to be published from an African American woman. Celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic, Wheatley found admirers in the likes of Voltaire, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Paul Jones.