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.

A follow-up to their runaway success Peach Pit: Sixteen Stories of Unsavory Women, editors Molly Llewellyn and Kristel Buckley return with Be Gay, Do Crime, a celebration of queer chaos from an all-queer author lineup featuring Myriam Gurba, Emily Austin, Alissa Nutting, and Francesca Ekwuyasi A trans woman makes increasingly frequent hoax calls to a business where she's had a negative experience, watching the consequences with perverse joy. A group of aging queers turns to bank robbery to stop the sale of their bungalow complex to a development company. As the president prepares to give a speech, two women lurk among the journalists, ready to shoot him. And an aspiring author takes to stealing items from strangers’ homes in a kind of cosmic redistribution each time one of her relationships fail. In sixteen brilliant, wild-eyed stories, Be Gay, Do Crime delivers a celebration and reckoning of why queer people turn to crime– be it unintentionally, as a means of survival, as protest, as rescue, or to right injustices big and small.

Exciting new things come to the Larsons' farm in Minnesota in the springtime--incliding a tiny new baby. But changes bring new worries and more work for Kirsten, too. First she is afraid for Mama's health. Then caring for a baby keeps her so busy that her life seems to be nothing but chores. Soon Kirsten doesn't even have time to help with the surprise she and her friends are planning for their teacher, Miss Winston. And when she has to miss school to help out at home, she worries that her friends will forget her. But Kirsten's hard work is rewarded, and her tenth birthday becomes a celebration of family and friendship.

In Renaissance Italy, Bianca, a young lady from a good family, is of marriage age. Her parents find her a fiancé to their liking: Giovanni, a rich merchant, young and pleasant. The wedding looks set to go smoothly even though Bianca can’t hide her disappointment at having to marry a man she knows nothing about. But before the marriage, she learns the secret held and bequeathed by the women of her family for generations: a “man’s skin”! By donning it, Bianca becomes “Lorenzo” and enjoys all the attributes of a young man of stunning beauty. She can now visit the world of men incognito and get to know her fiancé in his natural environment. In her male skin, Bianca frees herself from the limits imposed on women and discovers love and sexuality. The moral of the Renaissance then acts as a mirror to that of our century and poses several questions: why should women have a different sexuality from that of men? Why should their pleasure and freedom be the object of contempt and coercion? Finally, how can morality be the instrument of both severe and unconscious domination? Tackling universal themes such as gender, sexuality, LGBTQ+, compassion, religion, and morality through a captivating and subtle fable, Hubert and Zanzim brilliantly question our relationship to gender and sexuality... but not only that. By mixing religion and sex, morality and humor, nobility and outspokenness, A Man’s Skin invites us both to the liberation of morals and to the mad and noble quest for love. This edition includes a lesson plan and discussion guide.

The books in this collection tell the stories of six American girls who lived long ago: Felicity, a spunky, spritely colonial girl, full of energy and independence Josefina, an Hispanic girl whose heart and hopes are as big as the New Mexico sky Kirsten, a pioneer girl of strength and spirit who settles on the frontier Addy, a courageous girl determined to be free in the midst of the Civil War Samantha, a bright Victorian beauty, an orphan raised by her wealthy grandmother Molly, who schemes and dreams on the home front during World War Two You can share their worlds - their friends and families, their struggles and successes, their sad times and celebrations, their secrets and adventures. You'll see that some things about growing up have changed, while others - like families, friendships, and feelings - haven't changed at all. These are the important things that American girls will always share. They come alive for you in the American Girls Collection.