"Contagiously upbeat, joyful, and positive . . . [C]herish this book." -Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW "A must-have for any library that is in need of books with positive representation for and about Black children, as there is no other alphabet book quite like this one." -School Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW "A necessary, uplifting volume that celebrates 'black girl magic' and 'black boy joy.'" -Publishers Weekly M Is for Melanin is an empowering alphabet book that teaches kids their ABCs and celebrates Black children, now available as a board book! M is for Melanin shining in every inch of your skin. Every shade, every hue. All beautiful and unique. Each letter of the alphabet contains affirming, Black-positive messages, from A is for Afro, to F is for Fresh, to W is for Worthy. This book teaches children their ABCs while encouraging them to love the skin that they're in. Be bold. Be fearless. BE YOU.
"From what you look like, to your favorite food, to what makes you mad, glad, or sad, there is no one quite like you! It's incredible but true, so go and be your best you!" --
Welcome to Forest Magic School, where young mystics learn the basics of African spiritualty through astrology, plant magic, cowrie divination, breathwork, and the magic within melanin! There’s a portal you can enter that will you help you remember your magic. Join Yawa and Kossi as a forest scholar and begin your journey to discovering what African spirituality is all about. With the help of these almost-twins, their classmates, and their professors, you will learn about your magically melanated skin and how to harness the power within you to become more connected to your ancestors and to the universe. Forest Magic School teaches you how to connect with your ori through breathing and presence, to celebrate the four elements, and to become connected to mystical spirits, or Òrìṣàs. Learn to calculate your birth chart, to use plant magic for healing and personal growth, and feel empowered through proverbs, mantras, and symbols while celebrating what makes you special and a part of the cosmos. Through a beautifully woven narrative and with easy-to-digest prompts and thought questions throughout, this is the guide for any juvenile mystic seeking deeper knowledge about their heritage and the principles of African spirituality.
"Satori's Magic Journal: A Black Girl's Journey to Manifesting Her Reality" is an empowering book for young black girls that aims to inspire them to recognize the incredible potential within themselves. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of personal growth, including believing in oneself, gratitude, self-care, mindset, courage, creativity, kindness, resilience, positivity, and self-love. Through positive self-talk statements and manifestation quotes, the author guides readers towards a life filled with purpose, joy, and abundance, reminding them that they are capable of manifesting the life they desire, even during life's challenges. The final chapter encourages readers to reflect on their love for themselves and their aspirations for their lives.
Youth librarians and early literacy educators will find this book a helpful tool for making storytimes more inclusive and better representative of their community and the world at large. Written by two experienced librarians from one of the nation's most diverse metroplexes, Social Justice at Storytime provides a real-world, hands-on guide to storytimes that will help young people become more socially aware, empathetic, and confident. Storytimes can be a welcoming space for all members of the community. Anyone presenting storytime to young children can use these suggestions to broaden children's understanding of the often-confusing situations they see and hear around them. It is possible to discuss race, gender/sexuality, and diverse abilities in a child-appropriate way. Making social justice a part of an existing or new storytime practice provides an early literacy approach to including children in timely conversations. Readers of this thoughtful book will not only become more socially aware and empathetic, but they will also be equipped to choose diverse books and songs, make thoughtful and inclusive language choices, become more in tune with their diverse communities, and handle concerns from caregivers or administrators.
Empower black boys to dream, believe, achieve Schools that routinely fail Black boys are not extraordinary. In fact, they are all-too ordinary. If we are to succeed in positively shifting outcomes for Black boys and young men, we must first change the way school is "done." That’s where the eight in ten teachers who are White women fit in . . . and this urgently needed resource is written specifically for them as a way to help them understand, respect and connect with all of their students. So much more than a call to call to action—but that, too!—The Guide for White Women Who Teach Black Boys brings together research, activities, personal stories, and video interviews to help us all embrace the deep realities and thrilling potential of this crucial American task. With Eddie, Ali, and Marguerite as your mentors, you will learn how to: Develop learning environments that help Black boys feel a sense of belonging, nurturance, challenge, and love at school Change school culture so that Black boys can show up in the wholeness of their selves Overcome your unconscious bias and forge authentic connections with your Black male students If you are a teacher who is afraid to talk about race, that’s okay. Fear is a normal human emotion and racial competence is a skill that can be learned. We promise that reading this extraordinary guide will be a life-changing first step forward . . . for both you and the students you serve. About the Authors Dr. Eddie Moore, Jr., has pursued and achieved success in academia, business, diversity, leadership, and community service. In 1996, he started America & MOORE, LLC to provide comprehensive diversity, privilege, and leadership trainings/workshops. Dr. Moore is recognized as one of the nation’s top motivational speakers and educators, especially for his work with students K–16. Dr. Moore is the Founder/Program Director for the White Privilege Conference, one of the top national and international conferences for participants who want to move beyond dialogue and into action around issues of diversity, power, privilege, and leadership. Ali Michael, Ph.D., is the co-founder and director of the Race Institute for K–12 Educators, and the author of Raising Race Questions: Whiteness, Inquiry, and Education, winner of the 2017 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award. She is co-editor of the bestselling Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice and sits on the editorial board of the journal, Whiteness and Education. Dr. Michael teaches in the mid-career doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, as well as the Graduate Counseling Program at Arcadia University. Dr. Marguerite W. Penick-Parks currently serves as Chair of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. Her work centers on issues of power, privilege, and oppression in relationship to issues of curriculum with a special emphasis on the incorporation of quality literature in K–12 classrooms. She appears in the movie, "Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible," by the World Trust Organization. Her most recent work includes a joint article on creating safe spaces for discussing White privilege with preservice teachers.
Named one of The Root's 2023 Best Books by Black Authors It's often said that Black women are magic, but what if they really are mythological? Growing up as a Black girl in America, Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton yearned for stories she could connect to—true ones, of course, but also fables and mythologies that could help explain both the world and her place in it. Greek and Roman myths felt as dusty and foreign as ancient ruins, and tales by Black authors were often rooted too far in the past, a continent away. Mouton’s memoir is a praise song and an elegy for Black womanhood. She tells her own story while remixing myths and drawing on traditions from all over the world: mothers literally grow eyes in the backs of their heads, children dust the childhood off their bodies, and women come to love the wildness of the hair they once tried to tame. With a poet’s gift for lyricism and poignancy, Mouton reflects on her childhood as the daughter of a preacher and a harsh but loving mother, living in the world as a Black woman whose love is all too often coupled with danger, and finally learning to be a mother to another Black girl in America. Of the moment yet timeless, playful but incendiary, Mouton has staked out new territory in the memoir form.
"[A] scintillating tour de force . . . in a free-ranging style as distinctive as its subject . . . Forgoing the strictures and linearity of traditional biography, Gumbs enlivens her narrative with unconventional flourishes that in lesser hands might feel like a gimmick but here come across as revelation . . . Gumbs is a master stylist with a knack for writing sentences at once direct and expansive (“The scale of the life of the poet is the scale of the universe”). This is a feast for the intellect—and the soul." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) "A celebration of a tireless advocate . . . Stars, hurricanes, and even whale songs feature in a narrative notable for lyrical prose and unabashed admiration . . . Gumbs offers thoughtful analyses of Lorde’s poems, as well as the pressures and pleasures of her life: friends and lovers; marriage to a white gay man; motherhood; divorce; and recurring cancer . . . A defiant woman sensitively and incisively portrayed." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Gumbs, one of our great poets, has delivered not only a masterful biography of Audre Lorde but a revolution in what a biography can be. Whether you only know Lorde through her most famous quotes or if you’ve read everything she wrote a thousand times, there is something new and exciting here for you. Structurally playful, deeply researched, vibrantly felt, it’s a masterwork all around." —LitHub A bold, innovative biography that offers a new understanding of the life, work, and enduring impact of Audre Lorde. We remember Audre Lorde as an iconic writer, a quotable teacher whose words and face grace T-shirts, nonprofit annual reports, and campus diversity-center walls. But even those who are inspired by Lorde’s teachings on “the creative power of difference” may be missing something fundamental about her life and work, and what they can mean for us today. Lorde’s understanding of survival was not simply about getting through to the other side of oppression or being resilient in the face of cancer. It was about the total stakes of what it means to be in relationship with a planet in transformation. Possibly the focus on Lorde’s quotable essays, to the neglect of her complex poems, has led us to ignore her deep engagement with the natural world, the planetary dynamics of geology, meteorology, and biology. For her, ecological images are not simply metaphors but rather literal guides to how to be of earth on earth, and how to survive—to live the ethics that a Black feminist lesbian warrior poetics demands. In Survival Is a Promise, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, the first researcher to explore the full depths of Lorde’s manuscript archives, illuminates the eternal life of Lorde. Her life and work become more than a sound bite; they become a cosmic force, teaching us the grand contingency of life together on earth.
