Short-listed for the Forest of Reading Red Maple Award, 2012 Before you judge me, there are two things you should know about why I did it. Shana Tremain is a good kid. She knows right from wrong and she’s never been in any serious trouble. But when her best friend, Carrie, comes to her for help, Shana agrees to break the law to save Carrie from a molester. She even feels good about it for a while. Then trouble starts. Someone in their group of friends is stealing from the others. As she searches for the truth, Shana uncovers evidence that raises a terrifying question: Has she made a horrible mistake? Faced with the reality of what she’s done, Shana finds herself trapped in a web of her own lies and deceit. Can she convince the right people that she’s telling the truth now? Either way it’s clear someone is going to pay a terrible price for her crime.
Cleo LaRue is one of the best-loved preachers and writers about preaching. In past volumes, he has brought together great collections of African American preaching to showcase the best preaching from across the country. Here he offers his own insights into what makes for great preaching. Filled with telling anecdotes, LaRue's book recognizes that while great preaching comes from somewhere, it also must go somewhere, so preachers need to use the most artful language to send the Word on its journey.
Introduction by Ted Morgan When originally released in the early 1980s, New Statesman called Origo's final book 'a sensitive and beautifully written book by a remarkable writer.' Available again in this new edition, Origo's memoir tells the story of four friends, writer Lauro de Bosis, American monologuist Ruth Draper, the historian Gaetano Salvemi, and author of 'Fontamara' and 'Bread and Wine', Ignazio Silone, each of whom made various life sacrifices in the fight for a non-fascist Italy. Illustrated throughout with photos.
"Sue Kwon's undeniable hip-hop résumé should be bowed down to! Sue is definitely one of the greats in visually capturing a culture." -Posdnuos of De La Soul The last decade of the 20th century into the first decade of the 21st represent a High Renaissance age of hip hop--an era in which rap music had reached critical mass and was exploding, and in which New York City itself witnessed the worldwide ascension and cultural domination of its powerful homegrown art form. In Rap Is Risen: New York Photographs 1988-2008, celebrated photographer Sue Kwon documents this era with a combination of incisive portraits and unposed, spontaneous images that capture the energy of these ascendant artists and the city itself. With access to some of rap music's biggest legends--some stars already, some at the cusp of their fame--Kwon's work offers an intimacy rarely seen in the hip hop photography of the time. The Wu-Tang Clan, Biggie Smalls, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Big Pun, Eminem, Mobb Deep, the Beastie Boys, Big L, Ice Cube, De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest are all represented here, as well as dozens of other DJs and artists that communed with Kwon to produce these images. Method Man brushing his teeth, Fat Joe playing softball in the Bronx, Prince Paul kissing his baby son--the trust inherent between subject and photographer is evident in intimate, joyful shots like these. Giving a rare glimpse into real rap culture, and featuring 300 photographs, most of which have never been published before, Rap Is Risenis a necessary offering to music history and the faithful followers of hip hop. Sue Kwonbegan her career at the Village Voiceand went on to shoot primarily hip hop artists for record labels such as Def Jam, Sony and Loud Records. Recent commercial collaborations include MCM, Sergio Tacchini and Carhartt WIP national campaigns.
The third edition of this classic resource provides mental health professionals with pithy, practical advice for testifying in court with the same wit and whimsy and a revamped structure.
Police killings of unarmed Black people have ignited a national and international response unlike any in decades. But differing from their civil rights-oriented predecessors, today’s activists do not think that the institutions and values of liberal democracy can eradicate structural racism. They draw instead on a Black radical tradition that, Terrence L. Johnson argues, derives its force from its unacknowledged ethical and religious dimensions. We Testify with Our Lives traces Black religion’s sustained influence from SNCC to the present, reconstructing a radical lived ethics of freedom and justice. Johnson demonstrates that Black Power fundamentally contests liberalism’s abstract understanding of democracy, calling instead for new embodied frameworks to achieve human flourishing and dignity. Black bodies represent the primary form of resistance against violent and oppressive regimes of white supremacy and exploitation, and the individual and collective struggles of Black life bear witness to the dogged determination to cultivate beauty, rage, and joy. Considering the writings of Audre Lorde, Toni Cade Bambara, Stokely Carmichael, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin, We Testify with Our Lives makes its case through a new narrative of the evolution of Black radicalism from the civil rights movement through the Movement for Black Lives. It forges new insights into Black Power’s vital contributions to debates on ethics, transnational politics, democracy, political solidarity, and freedom—and its potent resources for the ongoing struggle to build democratic possibilities for all.
The compassionate and redemptive story of a prominent Black woman in the Twin Cities literary community Carolyn Holbrook’s life is peopled with ghosts—of the girl she was, the selves she shed and those who have caught up to her, the wounded and kind and malevolent spirits she’s encountered, and also the beloved souls she’s lost and those she never knew who beg to have their stories told. “Now don’t you go stirring things up,” one ghostly aunt counsels. Another smiles encouragingly: “Don’t hold back, child. Someone out there needs to hear what you have to say.” Once a pregnant sixteen-year-old incarcerated in the Minnesota juvenile justice system, now a celebrated writer, arts activist, and teacher who helps others unlock their creative power, Holbrook has heeded the call to tell the story of her life, and to find among its chapters—the horrific and the holy, the wild and the charmed—the lessons and necessary truths of those who have come before. In a memoir woven of moments of reckoning, she summons stories born of silence, stories held inside, untold stories stifled by pain or prejudice or ignorance. A child’s trauma recalls her own. An abusive marriage returns to haunt her family. She builds a career while raising five children as a single mother; she struggles with depression and grapples with crises immediate and historical, all while countenancing the subtle racism lurking under “Minnesota nice.” Here Holbrook poignantly traces the path from her troubled childhood to her leadership positions in the Twin Cities literary community, showing how creative writing can be a powerful tool for challenging racism and the healing ways of the storyteller’s art.
Poetry. TESTIFY (Octopus Books), Simone John's first full-length book of poems, experiments with documentary poetics to uplift stories of black people impacted by state-sanctioned violence. The book's first section weaves Rachel Jeantel's testimony in the Trayvon Martin trial with Kendrick Lamar lyrics, fixed form and found poems, and personal artifacts. The second section centers on the audio of the dashboard recording that captured Sandra Bland's fatal police encounter. Excerpts from this exchange are punctuated with elegies for other dead black women, creating a larger commentary about race and gender- based violence. TESTIFY is ultimately a book of witness. It "burdens" its readers "with knowing." Combined, both chapters serve as an unflinching critique of race and gender supremacy in the United States.
Blue Hamilton, "godfather" of his Atlanta neighborhood where crime is unknown, becomes pitted against the "Too Fine Five," Amazonian African-American supermodels whose arrival in town spells trouble. Seems that when the vamps are done with their men, themen will be done ... for good.
A poignant and astonishing debut, Testify interrogates race in America without feigning easy answers. In these poems Manuel crafts ambivalent spaces that seek steady reconciliation between past and present, self and family, faith and skepticism. As racial tensions heighten across the country, Testify offers an introspective rather than voicing a movement, arguing that individual experience is key to understanding the truth of the trials at hand.
