After Ellis’ best friend, Lora, disappears from Clearwood Home for Orphans, the only clue is Lora’s bookmark, upon which she’d written the phrase “The Forests of the Night.” Soon after, Ellis is assigned as guardian to new resident Pip, who doesn’t speak. Both girls feel a strong connection to the massive Ghost Tree—the fossilized remains […]
It’s 1979, and Mickey, who was Surf City’s chief of police and is now Long Beach Island’s “one and only detective,” is in a helicopter above the southern New Jersey shoreline. The pilot is Claude Stellwag, who, like her recently deceased husband, is a Vietnam War veteran; he’s also one of her two current suitors. […]
Born Malcolm Little in Nebraska in 1925, he grew up in a household that openly defied white supremacy. In 1931, his dad died in an incident the police ruled accidental; his mom, however, believed her husband was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan offshoot called the Black Legion. Traumatized, Malcolm engaged in criminal behavior and […]
Kimberly Valva is the world’s most unlikely hired killer. Self-employed graphic designers who make ends meet by serving guests at country clubs and praying to put away enough money for the surgery that would save their ailing goldendoodles’ lives don’t fit the profile. But Kim’s unlikely credentials, combined with her need for quick cash, may […]
The author begins the story of her beloved brother in 1993 with the striking observation that, even though they were both grown adults now, the AIDS virus has shrunk her brother’s body, leaving him “lost in the folds of an over-washed, white hospital gown.” When they were children in 1969, Olaf (as Boulanger lovingly called […]
The day has arrived to select little Jojo’s kente, a Ghanaian cloth known for its striking patterns. Kente has a rich cultural history; as Daddy says, it all began many years ago, when, according to lore, two hunters saw the spider Ananse spinning a beautiful web and asked him to teach them. Mummy, Daddy, baby […]
Journalist and author Fieseler’s vital account shines a light on the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee—“a forgotten cabal of gerrymandered white legislators that went after Black and queer citizens in the mid-twentieth century at the height of anti-Communist hysteria.” This pursuit led to the surveillance and persecution of Black NAACP activists and then to the firings […]
The narrative opens on 10-year-old Marlene, who lives in rural Tennessee during the Great Depression. During summer break, she helps her family with chores, spends time with her 6-year-old brother, Silas, and makes regular trips into town to barter eggs at Mr. Butler’s grocery store. On one of these trips, she encounters a redbone coonhound […]
“Delaware’s Christmas traditions echo the broader American story,” writes the author, who highlights the ways in which First State residents have been “remarkably flexible” in blending “customs that took root in the colonies” with later demographic, social, and cultural changes. The book’s first section, “Cultural Traditions,” explores how various peoples have contributed to the history […]
Simultaneously a record of comics art in Japan and an account of its trailblazing publishing industry, Exner’s book traces the initial spark of Japanese cartooning back to the 1890s, when newspapers began syndicating (and at times outright copying) American-made cartoons. Artists soon began their own homespun stories like Yutaka Aso’s Easygoing Daddy and Suiho Tagawa’s […]