"When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his 'proper place' and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary." Overcoming extreme poverty, racism, and other adversities Carter Godwin...

Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. With this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison transfigures the coming-of-age story as audaciously as Saul Bellow or Gabriel García Márquez. As she follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family's origins, Morrison introduces an entire cast of strivers...

When it was first produced in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for that season and hailed as a watershed in American drama. A pioneering work by an African-American playwright, the play was a radically new representation of black life. "A play that changed American theater forever."

Pecola Breedlove, a young eleven-year-old black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dreams grow more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity.--from...

"For Ta-Nehisi Coates, history has always been personal. At every stage of his life, he's sought in his explorations of history answers to the mysteries that surrounded him--most urgently, why he, and other black people he knew, seemed to live in fear ... In [this book], Coates takes readers along on his journey through America's history of race and its contemporary resonances through a series of awakenings--moments when he discovered some new truth...

Audience "Ages 7 and up"--cover p. [4]. With the end of the Civil War in 1865, Addy desperately hopes that her family will be reunited in freedom in Philadelphia, but the future may hold both happiness and heartache.

A girl describes how she and her family celebrate the seven days of Kwanzaa.

"The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning nearly thirty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug...

Married to some of Washington, D.C.'s most influential men, Bethany, Deanna and Marisol are on the guest list at every high-profile political and social event. And when they meet at a fundraiser, they forge a deep, unexpected friendship. Beneath the glamour, all three are struggling to hide the void in their marriages. Bethany's teenage stepdaughter is wreaking chaos at home, and to escape Bethany begins writing an anonymous, dirt-dishing gossip...

Lyssa and Jacob, owners of the swingers' club Puss and Boots, have been living an active swingers lifestyle ever since their two children moved out of the house. Every couple months they hire a "live-in," a girl who in exchange for room, board, and a paycheck provides sex on demand. Danielle and Stewart met each other at a swingers' club eight years ago. They fell in love and married, soon becoming regulars at Puss and Boots before obtaining their...