2021 LODESTAR AWARD for BEST YOUNG ADULT BOOK Fourteen-year-old Mona isn’t like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can’t control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt’s bakery making gingerbread men dance. But Mona’s life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona’s city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona’s worries…

One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent—but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Now, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings together this urgent, galvanizing collection of contemporary essays by disabled people. From Harriet McBryde Johnson’s account of her debate with Peter Singer over her own personhood to original pieces by authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma; from blog posts, manifestos, and eulogies to Congressional testimonies, and beyond: this anthology gives a glimpse into the rich complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and the past with hope and love.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.As indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.” As Elizabeth Gilbert writes, Robin Wall Kimmerer is “a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world.” The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that “hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual.”

'It raises the standard of nature writing. This is both radical manifesto and activism in book form' Sally Huband, author of Sea Bean'Long before I knew I was sick, I knew I was breakable . . .'After years of unexplained health problems, Polly Atkin's understanding of her body had become fluid and disjointed. When she was finally diagnosed with two chronic conditions in her thirties, she began to piece together her own the fractures and dislocations, the exhaustion and medical disregard.A searing blend of memoir, nature writing and pathography, Some of Us Just Fall traces a remarkable journey through illness. From misdiagnoses to wild swimming in the Lake District, Polly examines her genetic inheritance, her place in the natural world and her future in her body.'Defiant and dazzling' Freya Bromley, author of The Tidal Year

Spanning a thousand years of history--and bringing the story to the present through ethnographic fieldwork in Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania--Rudolph Ware documents the profound significance of Qur'an schools for West African Muslim communities. Such schools peacefully brought Islam to much of the region, becoming striking symbols of Muslim identity. Ware shows how in Senegambia the schools became powerful channels for African resistance during the eras of the slave trade and colonization. While illuminating the past, Ware also makes signal contributions to understanding contemporary Islam by demonstrating how the schools' epistemology of embodiment gives expression to classical Islamic frameworks of learning and knowledge. Today, many Muslims and non-Muslims find West African methods of Qur'an schooling puzzling and controversial. In fascinating detail, Ware introduces these practices from the viewpoint of the practitioners, explicating their emphasis on educating the whole human being as if to remake it as a living replica of the Qur'an. From this perspective, the transference of knowledge in core texts and rituals is literally embodied in people, helping shape them--like the Prophet of Islam--into vital bearers of the word of God.

Quran in Arabic with a Parallel Contemporary Interpretation in English.And why another interpretation of the Quran? Answer: Because God’s Living Word unfolds with fresh insights and meaning over time as our intellectual and spiritual horizons expand. Every generation of readers of the Quran needs to discover the Divine Message – dynamic and timeless - based not only on past knowledge but also on the knowledge and insights gained in our times, unknown to past scholars.Saeed Malik’s “Al A Study of the Living Word” (2025) eminently meets these objectives. The reader is moved by the author’s command of the English language and his ability to convey the subtlety, beauty and power of the Divine Words. While no translation and Tafseer of the Quran can equal the depth and beauty of the original Arabic, the seriousness and sincerity of Malik’s scholarship shine on every page of this 550-plus-page volume, making it a valuable resource for Muslims and for anyone wishing to engage deeply with Islam’s Holy Book.Malik has the bona fides to take on this monumental challenge. In 2009, he published “A Perspective on the Signs of Through the Prism of the Heart” that was warmly received not only by Muslims but also by adherents of other faiths. He followed this book with “Meeting of Two Where the Heart Leads the Mind” in 2016, a profound reflection on the 18th Chapter of the Quran, Surah Kahf.Let me explain why I consider “Al A Study of the Living Word” to be so enlightening and enriching.Consider the English translation of verse 143 of the second chapter of the Quran, Sura Baqara 2:143:“Thus, have WE made you a centered community so that you may be witnesses over humankind, and that the Messenger be a witness over you …”The interpretation of this verse, the Tafseer, contains this detailed “Ummatan Wasatan is a rich phrase. ‘Wasat’ means ‘middle, center, heart, etc.’ ‘Centered community’ is intended to mean a community which centers itself on the Truth, as related and lived by HIS Prophet through the Quran, consistent with the spiritual legacy of Abraham. The believers symbolize unity when they align with the very center of the Ka’bah during Prayers, and even more tellingly during circumambulation. Other translations have adopted other rich meanings, including ‘middle,’ ‘moderate,’ ‘just,’ etc. ‘Community of the middle way (Asad, 2003), ‘Middle community’ (Nasr, 2015) Rich meanings flow from these Balanced of heart and mind, in complete harmony. Balanced between the spiritual and the worldly, not extreme, etc. etc.”What a marvelous Tafseer! In the Bibliography section, Saeed lists over 30 references he draws upon for his translation and Tafseer. Notice how generously he lists some of these resources (Asad, Nasr) to explain verse (2:143).This pattern - the translation of the Quranic verse in his inimitable style, followed by the Tafseer, also rendered in his unique and deeply researched style - is maintained throughout the text, making the translation and the Tafseer an enlightening and even a mystical experience for the reader.The 13th-century mystic, philosopher and poet, Jalaluddin Md. Rumi (1207-1273) “There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.