Showing results by narrator "Renee Lisa Pitts" in All Categories

Dr. Janet Watson knows firsthand the horrifying cost of a divided nation. While treating broken soldiers on the battlefields of the New Civil War, a sniper’s bullet shattered her arm and ended her career. Honorably discharged and struggling with the semi-functional mechanical arm that replaced the limb she lost, she returns to the nation’s capital. Homeless and jobless, Watson is uncertain of the future when she meets another black and queer woman, Sara Holmes, a mysterious yet playfully challenging covert agent who offers the doctor a place to stay.

When their mother’s new job forces them to move from bustling San Antonio to middle-of-nowhere Aura, Texas, Caitlyn tries to stay positive, focusing on meeting new people and having new adventures. Cassie, on the other hand, is convinced that it’s only a matter of time until they’ll be sick of Aura and ready to move back to the big city. But being the new kids isn’t their only challenge. The girls start experiencing strange visions, and they must work together to change the future before it can happen.

Telling her son's story against the backdrop of a society plagued by systemic racism, economic inequality, and mass incarceration, Golden offers a form of witness and testimony in a time of crisis for Black Americans. Explore Black boys' difficult road to adulthood in the US and learn why single Black mothers are often wrongly blamed for their sons' actions. Gain invaluable advice and knowledge from trustworthy sources. In Saving Our Sons, Golden documents her conversations with psychologists, writers, and young Black males themselves.

Leticia Langley is used to fighting for what she wants. That's how she wound up being the first in her family to graduate from college. So what if she's never had a date? All that's about to change when she gets herself a job as a food columnist for The Journal - and treats herself to a makeover that will transform her life. With her hot weave and a dazzling new wardrobe that shows off her curves, the opposite sex suddenly takes a shine to Leticia.

Eighteen-year-olds Rose and Rosebud have never met, but they share a birth year, a name, and a bloody pair of sneakers. Rose's quest to atone for the accident that kills Rosebud, a young woman so much like herself but for the color of her skin, unfolds alongside Rosebud's battle to survive the devastating flooding in the Lower Ninth Ward and to find help for her unstable mother.

In this fourth and final book, tween twins Cassie and Caitlyn Waters are excited to be returning to their hometown, San Antonio, on a class trip. But as they reach their destination, trouble finds them as quickly as a vision, and one of their friends soon disappears. Using their Sight and their street smarts to try to save the day, the twins also begin to see things they didn’t expect - a man in captivity who looks exactly like their father’s pictures. Could he really be alive? And can they use the clues they see to save him before it’s too late?

Is it okay to enjoy this life? Watching a gorgeous sunset. Sharing a laugh with a friend. Tasting a sun-ripened strawberry. Each day is full of opportunities for you to savor the countless gifts the creator has given. But do you feel free to delight in God's abundant gifts, or is your joy sometimes distorted by guilt, fear of idolatry, or simply an overwhelming awareness of sin's effects on this world?

In Making All Black Lives Matter, award-winning historian and longtime activist Barbara Ransby outlines the scope and genealogy of this movement, documenting its roots in Black feminist politics and situating it squarely in a Black radical tradition, one that is anti-capitalist, internationalist, and focused on some of the most marginalized members of the Black community.

Self-educated and brown skinned, Cassie works full time in her grandmother's laundry in rural Mississippi. Illiterate and white, Judith falls for "colored music" and dreams of life as a big-city radio star. These teenage girls are half-sisters. And when they catch wind of their wayward father's inheritance coming down in Virginia, they hitch their hopes on a road trip together to claim what's rightly theirs. In an old junk car, with a frying pan, a ham, and a few dollars hidden in a shoe, they set off through the Deep South of the 1950s.

The first woman inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, there was no one like Effa Manley in the sports world of the 1930s and 1940s. She was a sophisticated woman who owned a baseball team. She never shrank from going head to head with men, who dominated the ranks of sports executives. That her life story remained unchronicled for so long can only be attributed to one thing: her team, the Newark Eagles, belonged to the Negro Leagues. Author James Overmyer brings to light new details regarding Effa Manley's fascinating story.

It was called Freedom Summer, and they came to Mississippi by the hundreds, white and black, young and old. Their aim was elemental: secure the right to vote for blacks in the state. The hurdle they'd face would be daunting. Follow a reporter as she journeys to Mississippi and encounters the echoes of family and the struggle for civil rights.

Navigating the world of dating can be like wandering an enchanted forest, full of creatures with peculiar habits and baffling behavior. In Wood Nymph Seeks Centaur, Francesca Lia Block provides a guide to this often-treacherous terrain, classifying all those mystifying men and women into various types of mythical forest fauna - Fauns and Werewolves, Mermaids and Banshees. After answering questions to determine your own type, you can learn to identify others.

When Betsey Stockton was a child, she was "given, as a slave" to the household of Rev. Ashbel Green, a prominent pastor and later the president of what is now Princeton University. Although she never went to school, she devoured the books in Green's library. After being emancipated, she used that education to benefit other people of color, first in Hawai'i as a missionary, then Philadelphia, and, for the last three decades of her life, Princeton—a college town with a genteel veneer that never fully hid its racial hostility.

Not long ago, no one could even imagine a 28-year-old Latina upstart running for Congress representing Queens and the Bronx: It required facing the city’s nearly all-white, all-male political machine. But since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez graced the scene in all her bartending, tweet-talking, mold-breaking glory, the face of politics in the 21st century has changed. Today, Ocasio-Cortez is a foremost advocate for progress, whipping up support among her colleagues and gaining the secret admiration of her foes.

Told through two haunting, interwoven diaries, Mia Couto's Confession of the Lioness reveals the mysterious world of Kulumani, a village whose traditions are threatened when ghostlike lionesses begin hunting the women who live there.

Thirty diverse, award-winning authors and illustrators - including Renee Watson (Piecing Me Together), Grace Lin (Where the Mountain Meets the Moon), Meg Medina (Merci Suarez Changes Gears), and Adam Gidwitz (The Inquisitor's Tale) - engage young people in frank discussions about racism, identity, and self-esteem. Featuring stories filled with love, acceptance, truth, peace, and an assurance that there can be hope for a better tomorrow, The Talk is an inspiring anthology and must-have resource published in partnership with Just Us Books.

Nadine Cohodas's biography of the passionate, talented and difficult, but ultimately lovable, Nina Simone is an object lesson in American life. With thorough interviews and research, much new material and information that has never before come to light, Nadine tells the story of Eunice Wayman, born in Tryon NC in 1933, with a stunning musical talent that was spotted early by family and friends.

Overground Railroad chronicles the history of the Green Book, which was published from 1936 to 1966. For years, it was dangerous for African Americans to travel in the United States. Because of segregation, Black travelers couldn't eat, sleep, or even get gas at most white-owned businesses. The Green Book listed hotels, restaurants, stores, gas stations, and other businesses that were safe for Black travelers. It took courage to be listed in it, and the stories from those who took a stand against racial segregation are recorded and celebrated.

Identical twins Cassie and Caitlyn Waters may be able to see into the future, but with a teacher who suspects they have powers waiting to catch them midvision and the grandmother they just met in town to teach them how to better control what they foresee, the last thing they need is more trouble. Luckily, a class-wide game of Truth or Dare has begun and the twins are having fun competing. When a vision shows the girls' friend getting hurt, Cassie and Caitlyn know that they're the only ones who can prevent it.

Natalie is different from the other kids in Dreenie's fifth-grade class. She comes to school in a wheelchair. She always wears a knitted hat. And she's allowed to bring her puppy to class. The kids in the class call Natalie "Bluish" because her skin is tinted blue from chemotherapy.