“I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.” They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful. A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.

From the bestselling author of Strange Houses and Strange Pictures comes a mesmerizing novel of eleven strange buildings and one terrible secret. A lonely hut in the woods. A murder house. A hidden chamber. A mysterious shrine. A home in flames. A nightmarish prison. . . . Each of the buildings in this book tells a chilling story. Each one is part of a puzzle. Look closely . . . and you'll see that everything is connected. All leading to a revelation so horrifying you won't want to believe it. Millions have become addicted to solving Uketsu's dark mysteries. Strange Buildings is the strangest, and darkest, of them all.

Ten beautifully illustrated essays tell the stories of handcrafted objects and their makers, providing inspiration and insight into Black history and craftsmanship.Black artisans have long been central to American art and design, creating innovative and highly desired work against immense odds. Atlanta-based chairmaker and scholar Robell Awake explores the stories behind ten cornerstones of Black craft, The celebrated wooden chairs of Richard Poynor, an enslaved craftsman who began a dynasty of Tennessee chairmakers. The elegant wrought-iron gates of Philip Simmons, seen to this day throughout Charleston, South Carolina, whose work features motifs from the Low Country. The inventive assemblage art and yard shows of Joe Minter, James Hampton, Bessie Harvey, and others, who draw on African spiritual traditions to create large-scale improvisational art installations. From the enslaved potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina, to Ann Lowe, the couture dressmaker who made Jacqueline Kennedy's wedding dress, to Gullah Geechee sweetgrass basket makers, to the celebrated quilters of Gee's Bend, A Short History of Black Craft in Ten Objects illuminates the work of generations of Black craftspeople, foregrounding their enduring contributions to American craft.BLACK CRAFT AND Delving into the history of Black skilled artisans, estimated to have outnumbered white artisans five to one in the southern United States in the late 1800s, this unique art history book celebrates handcrafted objects that reflect the dynamic nature of Black culture.DYNAMIC ILLUSTRATED Luminous color illustrations by artist Johnalynn Holland highlight beloved craft objects and their makers, creating a fascinating volume to study and treasure.ART HISTORY Author Robell Awake is a notable furniture maker, artisan, and educator whose work has been featured in the New York Times and in group shows at Verso Gallery in New York City and the Center for Craft in Asheville, NC. Dr. Tiffany Momon, who contributes an afterword, is the founder and co-director of the Black Craftspeople Digital Archive and a leading scholar of Black history and African American placemaking throughout the southeast.BEAUTIFUL GIFT The gorgeous design is ideal for art collectors and craft enthusiasts, as a keepsake reminder of Black heritage, for Black History Month and beyond.Perfect Anyone interested in the intersection of Black art, craft, and history Designers and craftspeople Educators and students Collectors and museum curators Lovers of fine and artisanal design objects

Kaya dreams of racing her beautiful mare Steps High. Her father warns her that the horse isn't ready, but when a pesky boy insults Steps High, Kaya accepts his challenge to race. As they ride, Kaya loses sight of her little brothers. Her carelessness earns her a nickname that her friends won't let her forget.

“I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.” They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful. A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.

A small boy longed to roll and play in the grass like his father had when he was a child. But the boy lived in a concrete city without any grass or trees. Instead, they had roads, walls and lots of other ugly things. Then one day the boy and his friend discovered a sapling hiding behind a low wall. When they hear that a condominium is being built right on the spot where their tree is growing, the friends know they have to dig it up and replant it in a safe place.

Unearth the true story of green-thumbed pioneer and activist Kate Sessions, who helped San Diego grow from a dry desert town into a lush, leafy city known for its gorgeous parks and gardens. Katherine Olivia Sessions never thought she’d live in a place without trees. After all, Kate grew up among the towering pines and redwoods of Northern California. But after becoming the first woman to graduate from the University of California with a degree in science, she took a job as a teacher far south in the dry desert town of San Diego. Where there were almost no trees.Kate decided that San Diego needed trees more than anything else. So this trailblazing young woman singlehandedly started a massive movement that transformed the town into the green, garden-filled oasis it is today. Now, more than 100 years after Kate first arrived in San Diego, her gorgeous gardens and parks can be found all over the city.Part fascinating biography, part inspirational story, this moving picture book about following your dreams, using your talents, and staying strong in the face of adversity is sure to resonate with readers young and old.

Where is our historian to give us our side, Arturo asked, to teach our people our own history? Amid the scholars, poets, authors, and artists of the Harlem Renaissance stood an Afro-Puerto Rican man named Arturo Schomburg. His life's passion was to collect books, letters, music, and art from Africa and the African diaspora in order to bring to light the achievements of people of African descent. When his collection became so large that it threatened to overflow his house, he turned to the New York Public Library. At the time, the collection, with Schomburg as curator, was the cornerstone of a new Division of Negro History, Literature and Prints. A century later, it is the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture—and a beacon for scholars all over the world. In luminous paintings and arresting poems, two of children's literature's foremost African-American scholars track the journey of Arturo Schomburg and his quest to correct and expand the historical record for generations to come.

An incredible memoir from Sharon Robinson about one of the most important years of the civil rights movement. In January 1963, Sharon Robinson turns thirteen the night before George Wallace declares on national television "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" in his inauguration speech as governor of Alabama. It is the beginning of a year that will change the course of American history. As the daughter of baseball legend Jackie Robinson, Sharon has opportunities that most people would never dream of experiencing. Her family hosts multiple fund-raisers at their home in Connecticut for the work that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is doing. Sharon sees her first concert after going backstage at the Apollo Theater. And her whole family attends the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. But things don't always feel easy for Sharon. She is one of the only Black children in her wealthy Connecticut neighborhood. Her older brother, Jackie Robinson Jr., is having a hard time trying to live up to his father's famous name, causing some rifts in the family. And Sharon feels isolated-struggling to find her role in the civil rights movement that is taking place across the country. This is the story of how one girl finds her voice in the fight for justice and equality.

Amy Hill Hearth uncovers the story of a little-known figure in U.S. history in this biography. In 1854, a young African American woman named Elizabeth Jennings won a major victory against a New York City streetcar company, a first step in the process of desegregating public transportation in Manhattan. One hundred years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, Elizabeth Jennings’s refusal to leave a segregated streetcar in the Five Points neighborhood of Manhattan set into motion a major court case in New York City. On her way to church one day in July 1854, Elizabeth Jennings was refused a seat on a streetcar. When she took her seat anyway, she was bodily removed by the conductor and a nearby police officer and returned home bruised and injured. With the support of her family, the African American abolitionist community of New York, and Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Jennings took her case to court. Represented by a young lawyer named Chester A. Arthur (a future president of the United States) she was victorious, marking a major victory in the fight to desegregate New York City’s public transportation.

A powerful, incisive reckoning with the impacts of school desegregation that traces four generations of the author’s family to show how integration decimated Black school systems and was a disservice to much of the Black community On May 17, 1954 the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education deemed racial segregation in schools unconstitutional. Heralded as a massive victory for civil rights, the decision's goal was to give Black students equal access to educational opportunities and clear a path to a better future. Yet in the years following the ruling, schools in predominantly Black neighborhoods were shuttered or saw their funding dwindle; Black educators were fired en masse; and Black students faced discrimination and violence from their white peers as they joined resource-rich schools that were ill-prepared for the influx of additional students. Award-winning interdisciplinary scholar of education and Black history Noliwe Rooks weaves together sociological data and cultural history to challenge the idea that integration was a boon for Black people. She shows how present-day discrimination lawsuits directly stem from the mistakes made during integration. She tells the story of her grandparents, who were among the thousands of Black teachers fired following the Brown decision; of her father, who was traumatized by his experiences at a predominantly white school; of her own experiences moving from a flourishing, racially diverse school to an underserved inner-city one; and finally, of her son and his Black peers, who struggle with hostility and prejudice from white teachers and white students alike. At once assiduously researched and deeply engaging, Integrated proves how education has remained both a tool for community progress and a seemingly inscrutable cultural puzzle. Rooks's deft hand turns the story of integration's past and future on its head, and shows how to better understand and support generations of students to come.

A tale of doom and ambition, loss and revenge, love and murder. Unwieldy Creatures, a biracial queer, nonbinary retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, follows the story of three beings who all navigate life from the margins: Plum (she/her), a queer biracial Chinese intern at one of the world’s top embryology labs, who runs away from home to openly be with her girlfriend only to be left on her own; Dr. Frank (she/her), a queer biracial Indonesian scientist who compromises everything she claims to love in the name of science and ambition when she sets out to procreate without sperm or egg; and Dr. Frank’s nonbinary creation, painstakingly brought into the world due to complications at birth that result from a cruel twist of revenge, only to be abandoned. Plum struggles to determine the limits of her own ambition when Dr. Frank offers her a chance to assist with her next project. How far will Plum go in the name of scientific advancement and what is she willing to risk?

In a small Western Queensland town, a reserved young woman receives a note from one of her vanished brothers—a note that makes her question her memories of their disappearance and her father’s departure. A beguiling story that proves that gothic delights and uncanny family horror can live—and even thrive—under a burning sun, Flyaway introduces readers to Bettina Scott, whose search for the truth throws her into tales of eerie dogs, vanished schools, cursed monsters, and enchanted bottles. In these pages Jennings assures you that gothic delights, uncanny family horror, and strange, unsettling prose can live—and even thrive—under a burning sun. Holly Black describes as “half mystery, half fairy tale, all exquisitely rendered and full of teeth.” Flyaway enchants you with the sly, beautiful darkness of Karen Russell and a world utterly its own.