Showing results by narrator "Dion Graham" in All Categories

Africa has been known as "the cradle of mankind", and its recoverable history stretches back to the Pharaohs. But the idea of studying African history is itself new, and the authors show why it is still contested and controversial. This VSI, the first concise work of its kind, will prove essential for anyone interested in the African continent and the diversity of human history.

Set in post-World War II Chicago and Omaha, the novel features Manfred Banks, a young, harmonica-blowing blues singer who is always writing music in his head. Torn between his friendships with fellow musicians and nightclub life and his responsibilities to his wife and child, along with the pressures of dealing with a racist America that assaults him at every turn, Manfred seeks easy answers in "Dirty Bird" (Old Crow whiskey) and in moving on.

When 11-year-old Langston's mother dies in 1946, he and his father leave rural Alabama for Chicago's brown belt as a part of what came to be known as the Great Migration. It's lonely in the small apartment with just the two of them, and Langston is bullied at school. But his new home has one fantastic thing. Unlike the whites-only library in Alabama, the local public library welcomes everyone. There, hiding out after school, Langston discovers another Langston, a poet whom he learns inspired his mother enough to name her only son after him.

Two friends, Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, get together for tea and conversation. They recount their similar stories fighting to win rights for women and African-Americans.

The Golden Gate Bridge is the most famous bridge in the world. It is also, not entirely coincidentally, the world's first bright-orange bridge. But it wasn't supposed to be that way. In this book, bridge lover Dave Eggers tells the story of how it happened - how a bridge that some people wanted to be red and white, and some people wanted to be yellow and black, and most people wanted simply to be gray, instead became, thanks to the vision and stick-to-itiveness of a few peculiar architects, one of the most memorable man-made objects ever created.

If you had to name a statue, any statue, odds are good you'd mention the Statue of Liberty. Have you seen her? She's in New York. She's holding a torch. And she's in mid-stride, moving forward. But why? In this fascinating and fun take on nonfiction, Dave Eggers investigates a seemingly small trait of America's most emblematic statue. What he finds is about more than history, more than art. What he finds in the Statue of Liberty's right foot is the powerful message of acceptance that is essential of an entire country's creation.

A comprehensive, entertaining look at heroes, heroines, and critical moments from African American history -- from the slave trade to the Black Lives Matter movement -- by award-winning author Jabari Asim. Jabari Asim goes beyond what's taught in the classroom to reveal a fact-filled history of...

As a low-level enforcer in Los Angeles, Ken Swift knows danger, but nowhere does he feel it more than in his tangled romances. Divorced from one woman, in love with another, and wrestling with a strong desire to get to know a third, his life is far from perfect, and it becomes all the more complicated when his troubled daughter resurfaces on the same day as a major job.

As a hit man from the time he was very young, money, women, and danger have always ruled Gideon's life; but for the first time, the job is taking its toll. Neither Gideon nor the city of Buenos Aires has recovered from the mayhem caused during Gideon's last job. But before the dust has settled and the bodies have been buried, Gideon calls in backup - including the lovely Hawks, with whom Gideon has heated memories - to launch his biggest act of revenge yet...one he believes will destroy his adversary, Midnight, once and for all.

Sticky is a beat-around-the-head foster kid with nowhere to call home but the street and an outer shell so tough that no one will take him in. He started out life so far behind the pack that the finish line seems nearly unreachable. He's a white boy living and playing in a world where he doesn't seem to belong. But Sticky can ball. And basketball might just be his ticket out, if he can only realize that he doesn't have to be the person everyone else expects him to be.

Did you know that many of America's Founding Fathers - who fought for liberty and justice for all - were slave owners? Through the powerful stories of five enslaved people who were "owned" by four of our greatest presidents, this book helps set the record straight about the role slavery played in the founding of America. From Billy Lee, valet to George Washington, to Alfred Jackson, faithful servant of Andrew Jackson, these dramatic narratives explore our country's great tragedy - that a nation "conceived in liberty" was also born in shackles.

The story of Negro League baseball is the story of gifted athletes and determined owners; of racial discrimination and international sportsmanship; of fortunes won and lost; of triumphs and defeats on and off the field. It is a perfect mirror for the social and political history of black America in the first half of the 20th century. But most of all, the story of the Negro Leagues is about hundreds of unsung heroes who overcame segregation to do the one thing they loved more than anything else in the world: play ball.

It’s one single steamy July day at the West 4th Street Court in New York City, otherwise known as the Cage. Hotshot baller ESPN is wooing the scouts, Boo is struggling to guard the weird new guy named Waco, a Spike Lee wannabe has video rolling, and virgin Irene is sizing up six-foot-eight-and-a-half-inch-tall Chester. Nine of young-adult literature’s top writers reveal how it all goes down in this searing novel in short stories that each ingeniously pick up where the last one ends.

The Wild Things - based very loosely on the storybook by Maurice Sendak and the screenplay cowritten with Spike Jonze - is about the confusions of a boy, Max, making his way in a world he can't control. His father is gone, his mother is spending time with a younger boyfriend, his sister is becoming a teenager and no longer has interest in him. At the same time, Max finds himself capable of startling acts of wildness: He wears a wolf suit, bites his mom, and can't always control his outbursts.

Did you know that Paul Laurence Dunbar originated such famous lines as "I know why the caged bird sings" and "We wear the mask that grins and lies"? From his childhood in poverty and his early promise as a poet through his struggles to find acceptance as a writer and his tumultuous romance with his wife, to his immense fame and his untimely death, Dunbar's story is one of triumph and tragedy.

A partially decomposed body of a young woman is discovered in a park in Pasadena, California. The woman was strangled but not sexually assaulted. The police suspect she might be a missing heiress who disappeared over a year ago, but dental records prove them wrong. But who is she? And is there a link between the heiress and this corpse? The celebrated detective Virgil Tibbs reshapes the known facts regarding these two women and discovers astonishing connections.

Nicholas, Kevin. Age 19. Died at York Hospital, July 19, 2012. Kev's the first kid their age to die. And now, even though he's dead, he's not really gone. Even now his choices are touching the people he left behind. Rita Williams-Garcia follows one aimless teen as he finds a new life in his new job - at the mortuary. Ellen Hopkins reveals what two altar boys (and one altar girl) might get up to at the cemetery at night.

Karen Lynn Williams "always takes [listeners] on a worthwhile journey" ( Booklist) with her critically acclaimed children’s tales. A Beach Tail follows a father and son during a magical day at the beach. After Gregory draws a lion in the sand, his father tells him to stay close to it and not to wander away. So Gregory, taking his father’s advice to heart, doesn’t dare leave his lion - even when he draws its tail so long it extends the length of the beach.

A haunting, beautiful first novel by the bestselling author of A Long Way Gone When Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone was published in 2007, it soared to the top of bestseller lists, becoming an instant classic: a harrowing account of Sierra Leone's civil war and the fate of child soldiers that...

Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, during his second inauguration as president of the United States. At a time when victory over the secessionists in the American Civil War was within days and slavery was near an end, Lincoln spoke of sadness. A mere 703 words, Lincoln's speech did not offer the North a victory speech, nor did he excoriate the South for the sin of slavery. Instead, he called on the entire country's guilt for the bloody war and argued for reconciliation and unity.