Showing results by narrator "Allyson Johnson" in All Categories

In the shadows of a seismic shift in American politics comes Tom Rachman's timely and hilarious new work. Basket of Deplorables takes an incisive and satirical look at the United States in the era of Trump data breaches, liberal self-righteousness, red-hat rancor, Starbucks macchiatos, Ultimate Fighting factories, and Internet sinkholes.

There are, in the United States, a significant and growing number of families who live on less than $2.00 per person, per day. That figure, the World Bank measure of poverty, is hard to imagine in this country - most of us spend more than that before we get to work or school in the morning.

In the wake of 2020, we need today's young learners to be prepared to develop solutions to a host of entrenched and complex issues, including systemic racism, massive environmental problems, deep political divisions, and future pandemics that will severely test the effectiveness and equity of our health policies. What better place to start that preparation than with a social studies curriculum that enables elementary students to envision and build a better world?

A proud working-class woman, an "out" lesbian long before the Rainbow revolution, Joan Nestle has stood at the forefront of American freedom struggles from the McCarthy era to the present day. Featuring photographs and a new introduction by the author, this classic collection which intimately accounts the lesbian, feminist and civil rights movements through personal essays is available again for the first time in years.

In the summer of 1860, more than 50 years after the United States legally abolished the international slave trade, 110 men, women, and children from Benin and Nigeria were brought ashore in Alabama under cover of night. They were the last recorded group of Africans deported to the United States as slaves. This book reconstructs the lives of the people in West Africa, recounts their capture and passage in the slave pen in Ouidah, and describes their experience of slavery alongside American-born enslaved men and women.

In Black Utopias, Jayna Brown takes up the concept of utopia as a way of exploring alternative states of being, doing, and imagining in Black culture. Musical, literary, and mystic practices become utopian enclaves in which Black people engage in modes of creative worldmaking.

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"....

New Yorker Jasmine Washington had a successful interior design business, a high-powered marriage, and a chance at motherhood - until her perfect husband betrayed her bigtime. Now starting from scratch, the Asian and African American stunner is tackling a lifetime opportunity: comanaging her friend's new luxury inn about to open in the Garden District. The last thing Jasmine needs is romance. New Orleans' most eligible bachelor, investment banker Cameron Singleton, begs to differ. 

This Newbery Honor Book and Coretta Scott King Award Winner from beloved author Patricia McKissack offers a “stellar collection” of “ten original stories, all with a foundation in African-American history or culture” (School Library Journal). In that special half-hour of twilight—the...

Ania Looren would have chosen death over becoming a demon host, if she'd had a choice. But her mate Liam is master of the Demon of Synar, and made that decision for her in order to save her life. Her spirit now grieves for what she has become Ania fears the great harm she can cause using the demon's power. Unfortunately, Liam's reluctant embrace of being the demon's master, along with his refusal to discuss Malachi with her, leaves Ania facing her destiny alone.

Something's happening in the small town of Bradbury. Something more sinister than the disappearance of the woman the Excoms have been sent to find. Something only they can stop. Ananke, Rosario, Dylan, Liesel, and Ricky have reassembled to undertake their second mission. Seems easy enough: locate the missing woman and be on their way. But not even the mysterious Administrator who called them together could have predicted what the team would encounter.

With her youthful appearance and light skin, African-American high school counselor Patricia knows how it feels to be an outsider in her own world. And when a biracial 15-year-old boy becomes the target of neighborhood bullies, she's determined to help him. One of New York's most successful men, Morgan Baxter feels totally at home in a corporate boardroom. But being a single father to a troubled teenager is a far more daunting challenge. Patricia Gilbert seems to understand his son - and him.

Beautiful young widow Elise Laffont embraces her freedom during the daylight hours, running the farm she loves so dearly, but the night brings with it painful reminders of the torment she endured at the hands of her abusive husband. Fate may have taken her husband, but it hasn't erased the scars he left, and Elise wonders if she will ever be able to bear the touch of a man again. From the moment he laid eyes on the beautiful widow, Reynaud Chevalier wanted her. When disaster offers him the chance to claim her as his own, Reynaud seizes the opportunity to bind Elise to him.

This debut science fiction novel is the story of Sira--a woman on the run from the law, from her own people, and from an unknown figure determined to use her for his own ends. Her memory taken from her by a stasis block, she must stay free long enough to regain both her identity and the full use of her telepathic powers. The price of failure may not only be the loss of her own future, but that of her entire race.

Self-exile became Sira's only choice when she discovered how deeply she'd been betrayed by the leaders of her own people. Rather than allow them to continue to use her for their own ruthless purposes, Sira, the most powerful being ever born to the alien race known at the Clan, fled with the human telepath, Jason Morgan. Now, living on a distant world in an environment over which she has control, Sira is striving to carve out a new life for herself.

Like all A-Z books, this one illustrates the alphabet - but instead of "A is for apple", A is for Angela - as in Angela Davis, the iconic political activist. B is for Billie Jean King, who shattered the glass ceiling of sports; C is for Carol Burnett, who defied assumptions about women in comedy; D is for Dolores Huerta, who organized farmworkers; and E is for Ella Baker, who mentored Dr. Martin Luther King and helped shape the civil rights movement.

The Exiled Leader: He was known as the Butcher of Jonasport. Zander Krycek made a choice that saved his world of Ithaca, but doomed his reputation and banished him to a planet far, far away. The Evil Empire: The Orlov Combine intends to swallow Ithaca in the same way they have devoured so many worlds, creating a "company planet" where the residents are litle beter than slaves.

A city equal parts darkness and hope. A scarred city. An often violent one. But a resilient city, too. That's our Memphis. Like many cities we have a namesake - in Egypt, Men-nefer became Menfe became Memphis, enduring and beautiful, on the banks of the Nile. Centuries later, another continent, another people, another river: Memphis, Tennessee, the soul of the Mississippi Delta, was formed.

When privateer Captain Catherine Blackwood is enlisted to rescue her brother from a treacherous warlord, she finds herself on her most dangerous mission yet. It's been years since Catherine Blackwood left the stodgy, repressive colony world of Avalon. Now the captain of the privateer vessel Andromeda, she is the master of her own destiny.

After she survives the bachelor auction, Sabine vows she is never doing another favor for a friend. This is especially true for favors that involve spending large sums of money and buying men whose last names she doesn't even know. In 20 bachelors, Sabine maybe expected to find several Davids, Mikes, or Johns. But what were the odds of two Todds? And now what is she going to do on a date with the wrong one?