Showing results by narrator "Allyson Johnson" in All Categories

In that special half-hour of twilight—the dark-thirty—there are stories to be told. Mesmerizing and breathtakingly original, these tales are inspired by African American history and range from the time of slavery to the civil rights era. With her extraordinary gift for suspense, Patricia C. McKissack has created a heart-stopping collection of lasting value, a book not quickly forgotten.

Shattered Bonds tells this story as no other book has before - from the perspective of a prominent Black, female legal theoretician. The current state of the child-welfare system in America is a well-known tragedy. Thousands of children every year are removed from their parents' homes, often for little reason other than the endemic poverty that afflicts women and children more than any other group in the United States.

Some locales seem to come with their own soundtrack. Don Ho and his tiny bubbles provide the background music for Hawaii, Edith Piaf for Paris. The reggae of Bob Marley evokes Jamaica. The soundtrack for Alabama is without question provided by our troubled troubadour Hank Williams. The 2016 biography Hank by Mark Ribowsky paints a dark picture of the musician's short, alcoholic, drug-filled life: a life of loneliness and pain. He goes so far as to call Hank's life story "noir-ish"....

Despite all good intentions, the lure of the Talent to move through space using the M'hir dimension is too much for the Om'ray of Cersi to resist. As the awareness of this talent spreads, all those Om'ray who are capable converge on the settlement at Sona. To prevent the disruption of the Agreement and the destruction that it would unleash, the M'hiray, as they now call themselves, agree to leave Cersi forever and try to establish their own haven within the Trade Pact worlds - only to learn that not everybody wants peace.

On the distant world of Cersi, Om'ray Aryl Sarc and her supporters have been exiled from the rest of their people. Finding refuge in the mountains, they work to rebuild the ruined village of Sona, even as they try to discover what happened to the original Sona Clan. But Sona has a history among all three of Cersi's races - a history that may soon threaten the future of Aryl's newly founded clan....

In Red Right Hand, Charlie Tristan Moore became the unwilling acolyte of the Man in Black, a treacherous elder god also known as Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos. In Black Goat Blues, Charlie fought her way past bloodthirsty gods and demons to rescue her lover’s stolen soul. Now she must stop the Man in Black from achieving his ultimate goal: freeing his dread father, Azathoth, from endless confinement to feast upon humanity for all eternity. But before she can confront her inhuman mentor for the final time, Charlie must make her way to the heart of a hellish prison.

In this anthology of creative nonfiction, 28 writers set out to discover what they know, and don't know, about the person they call Mother. Celebrated writers Samia Serageldin and Lee Smith have curated a diverse and insightful collection that challenges stereotypes about mothers and expands our notions of motherhood in the South. The mothers in these essays were shaped, for good and bad, by the economic and political crosswinds of their time.

The Land of Nod used to be just a name in a nursery rhyme to Wren. But when she discovered the secret magic of stardust, she learned that some of those rhymes had secrets of their own - and the Land of Nod is real. A few months ago, the evil Magician Boggen attempted to escape his exile on Nod and return to Earth. Wren stopped him, but Boggen is still out there. To save her world, Wren will travel farther than even she could have dreamed: to the heart of Nod itself, where she must defeat Boggen once and for all.

In their own words, immigrants recall their arrival in the United States. Includes brief biographies and facts about the Ellis Island Oral History Project.

Have you heard of the Star Maiden, Old Sally Cato, or Sweet Betsey from Pike? Everyone knows about Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, and Davy Crockett, But have you heard of these larger-than-life women? From Bess Call, who wrestles any and all challengers, to Molly Cottontail, who can outwit any critter in the woods, to Hekeke, who slays a giant singlehandedly, here are 15 funny, stormy, and always entertaining tall tales of legendary American women. They're as difference as can be, but still cut from the same cloth.

Most Western democracies have few or no people serving life sentences, yet here in the United States more than 200,000 people are sentenced to such prison terms. Marc Mauer and Ashley Nellis of The Sentencing Project argue that there is no practical or moral justification for a sentence longer than 20 years. A thoughtful and stirring call to action, The Meaning of Life also features moving profiles of a half dozen people affected by life sentences, written by former “lifer” and award-winning writer Kerry Myers.

Learn what makes the African American market unique, why marketers should care, and how you can effectively connect with black Americans. Drawing on her wealth of experience and ongoing research and consulting on the African American market, Pepper shares with listeners her thoughtful insights on this influential segment.

The Burden, edited by award-winning Detroit newspaper columnist Rochelle Riley, is a powerful collection of essays that create a chorus of evidence that the burden is real. The Burden expresses the voices of well-known Americans, such as actor/director Tim Reid who compares slavery to a cancer diagnosis, and former Detroit News columnist Betty DeRamus who recounts the discrimination she encountered as a young Black Detroiter in the south.

In modern, beautiful Green City, the capital of Southwest Asia, gender selection, war, and disease have brought the ratio of men to women to alarmingly low levels. The government uses terror and technology to control its people, and now females must take multiple husbands to have children as quickly as possible. Yet there are some who resist, women who live in an underground collective and refuse to be part of the system. Secretly protected by the highest echelons of power, they emerge only at night....

A community of quirky, mismatched, and endearing women struggle to find meaning and purpose on a ramshackle monastery in upstate New York. Having spent their lives in service to a church that seems to no longer serve them, they are confused about their own futures and the future of the entire monastery.

The all-time classic, best-selling ode to the love shared between parent and child. Perfect for new parents, baby showers, christenings, and sharing at bedtime. A day in the life of parent and child - full of smiles and giggles, messes and meals, boundless energy and well-earned rest. Not to mention lots of love. Here, in simple rhyming verse, is one such day. Share it with others and treasure the memories.

While walking to school one day, Andy meets a lion and soon makes a new friend. A tale of gratitude and helping out our neighbors, children of all ages will love this retelling of the classic folktale "Androcles and the Lion".

'Lois and Wilma are proud of their father's brand-new gold Cadillac and excited that the family will be driving it all the way from Ohio to Mississippi. But as they travel deeper into the rural South, there are no admiring glances for the shiny new car; only suspicion and anger for the black man behind the wheel. For the first time in their lives, Lois and her sister know what it's like to feel scared because of the color of their skin.

Valerie Flournoy and Jerry Pinkney created a warmhearted intergenerational story that became an award-winning perennial. Since then children from all sorts of family situations and configurations continue to be drawn to its portrait of those bonds that create the fabric of family life.

The first time Teresa saw Brother was the way she would think of him ever after. Tree fell head over heels for him. It was love at first sight in a wild beating of her heart that took her breath. But it was a dark Friday three weeks later when it rained, hard and wicked, before she knew Brother Rush was a ghost.