Black by Popular Demand
We got Tupac, Kamala Harris, and more this week!
This week we are sending you off to the Key Bookstore of Connecticut for all your spooky reads in advance!
Happy Reading!
Black Artists Shaping the World: Picture Book Edition
Featuring full-color reproductions of fourteen artworks and illustrations of the artists at work, this picture book is an ideal introduction to contemporary art for young children, and a fantastic tool for teachers wishing to decolonize and diversify their classroom.
Sharna Jackson's experience as a children's author who has worked for over a decade in the cultural sector, both at Tate in London and at Site Gallery in Sheffield, is combined here with the curatorial expertise of Dr. Zoé Whitley, Director of London's Chisenhale Gallery and co-curator of the landmark Tate exhibition "Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power." Their book features artists working in a variety of media from painting and sculpture to ceramics and installation.
(Children’s)
Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me
For Glory Edim, that "friend of my mind" is books. Edim, who grew up in Virginia to Nigerian immigrant parents, started the popular Well-Read Black Girl book club at age thirty, eventually reaching a community of half a million readers. But her own love of books stretches far back.
Edim's father moved back to Nigeria while she was still a child, marking the beginning of a series of traumatic changes and losses for her family. What became an escape, a safe space, and a second home for her and her brother was their local library. Books were where Edim found community, and as she grew older she discovered authors and ideas that she wasn't being taught about in class. Reading wherever and whenever she could, be it in her dorm room or when traveling by subway or plane, she found the Black writers whose words would forever change her life: Nikki Giovanni, through children's poetry cassettes; Maya Angelou, through a critical high school English teacher; Toni Morrison, while attending Morrison's alma mater, Howard University; Audre Lorde, on a flight to Nigeria. In prose full of both joy and heartbreak, Edim recounts how these writers and so many others taught her how to value herself by helping her to find her own voice when her mother lost hers, to trust her feelings when her father remarried, and to create bonds with other Black women and uplift their stories.
(Memoir)
Wild: Poems
Freedom is the most precious commodity in the world. In this powerful collection, the celebrated novelist, essayist, dramatist, and poet Ben Okri explores the beauty contained in each one of us--the freedom of our spirit, the child within. He recalls the death of his father, the sacrifices of his mother, the hidden river of Edinburgh, falling in love. He writes about Virgil and Mozambique, about ringing the bell for freedom, the dreams of Calliope and the full moon. He enters the fifth circle, sings of the roses of spring, and aligns the pyramids to the magic stars.
(Poetry)
Kamala Raised Her Hand
Ever since she was a child defending against classroom bullies, Kamala Harris has been raising her hand. She raised her hand to advocate in her neighborhood, on her college campus, in court, and in Congress. Then in 2021, Kamala Harris raised her hand and became the first woman, first Black American, and first South Asian American vice president in the nation's history.
(Picture Book)
The Year of Letting Go: 365 Days Pursuing Emotional Freedom
The Year of Letting Go: 365 Days Pursuing Emotional Freedom is a collection of 365 affirmations and quotes that explore themes of moving on and letting go--whether from toxic family, unhealthy friendships, or broken romantic relationships--on the journey to emotional freedom. Each day will include additional insight and encouragement from r.h. Sin that will inspire readers to put distance between themselves and everything that may be standing in their way of peace.
(Nonfiction)
Tupac Shakur: The Authorized Biography
Tupac Shakur is one of the greatest and most controversial artists of all time. More than a quarter of a century after his tragic death in 1996 at the age of just twenty-five, he continues to be one of the most misunderstood, complicated, and influential figures in modern history. Drawing on exclusive access to Tupac's private notebooks, letters, and uncensored conversations with those who loved and knew him best, this estate-authorized biography paints the fullest and most intimate picture to date of the young man who became a legend for generations to come.
In Tupac Shakur, author and screenwriter Staci Robinson--who knew Tupac from their shared circle of high school friends in Marin City, California, and who was entrusted by his mother, Afeni Shakur, to share his story--unravels the myths and unpacks the complexities that have shadowed Tupac's existence. Decades in the making, this book pulls back the curtain to reveal a powerful story of a life defined by politics and art--a man driven by equal parts brilliance and impulsiveness, steeped in the rich intellectual tradition of Black empowerment, and unafraid to utter raw truths about race in America.
It is a story of a mother and son bound together by a love for each other and for their people, and the relationship that endured through their darkest times. It is a political story that begins in the whirlwind of the 1960s civil rights movement and unfolds through a young artist's awakening to rage and purpose in the '90s era of Rodney King. It is a story of dizzying success and its devastating consequences. And, of course, it is the story of Tupac's music, his timeless, undying message as it continues to touch and inspire us today.
(Nonfiction)
