White brings with it dreams of respect, of wealth, of simply being treated as a human being. It's the one thing Walter will never be. But what if he could play white, the way so many others seem to do? Would it bring him privilege or simply deny the pain? The title story in this collection...  more

White brings with it dreams of respect, of wealth, of simply being treated as a human being. It's the one thing Walter will never be. But what if he could play white, the way so many others seem to do? Would it bring him privilege or simply deny the pain? The title story in this collection asks those questions, and then moves on to challenge notions of race, privilege, personal choice, and even life and death with equal vigor. From the spectrum spanning despair and hope in "What She Saw When They Flew Away" to the stark weave of personal struggles in "Chocolate Park," Let's Play White speaks with the voices of the overlooked and unheard. "I Make People Do Bad Things" shines a metaphysical light on Harlem's most notorious historical madame, and then, with a deft twist into melancholic humor, "Cue: Change" brings a zombie-esque apocalypse, possibly for the betterment of all mankind. Gritty and sublime, the stories of Let's Play White feature real people facing the worlds they're given, bringing out the best and the worst of what it means to be human. If you're ready to slip into someone else's skin for a while, then it's time to come play white. "These raw, brutal stories, often with intriguingly open endings, display an odd and unsettling relationships to the poetry of violence. These dark tales announce the arrival of a formidable new master of the macabre." -Samuel R. Delany, author of Dhalgren and Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders "What a stunning collection. Let's Play White... and so on time. [Chesya Burke has] touched something special in [her] stories. I'm a big Octavia Butler fan and I see a peek of that as well as some latter-day Toni Morrison [within these pages]. I see the light and warmth [Chesya is] offering. There definitely is magic in that. The short story, next to poetry, is the most difficult writing form. [Chesya has] tamed it and made it yield to [her] touch." -Nikki Giovanni, Grammy-nominated spoken word artist and poet About the Author: Chesya Burke has published over forty short stories in various venues including Dark Dreams: Horror and Suspense by Black Writers, Voices From the Other Side, and Whispers in the Night, each published by Kensington Publishing Corp. as well as the historical, science, and speculative fiction magazine, Would That It Were, and many more. Several of her articles appeared in the African American National Biography, published by Harvard and Oxford University Press, and she won the 2004 Twilight Tales award for short fiction. Chesya attends Agnes Scott College, where she studies creative writing and the African diaspora as it relates to race, class and gender. Many of these themes find themselves appearing in her fiction. Cover Artist: Jordan Casteel

When Dmitri, an eleven-year-old bird-watcher and math whiz, loses his mother to breast cancer, he is taken in by Mrs. Martin, an elderly white woman. Unaccustomed to the company of kids his own age, D struggles at school and feels like an outcast until a series of unexpected events changes the...  more

When Dmitri, an eleven-year-old bird-watcher and math whiz, loses his mother to breast cancer, he is taken in by Mrs. Martin, an elderly white woman. Unaccustomed to the company of kids his own age, D struggles at school and feels like an outcast until a series of unexpected events changes the course of his life. First, D is asked to tutor the school?s basketball star, Hakeem, who will get benched unless his grades improve. Against the odds, the two boys soon realize they have something in common: they are both taunted by kids at school, and they both have a crush on Nyla, a beautiful but fierce eighth-grade girl. Then Nyla adopts D and invites him to join her entourage of ?freaks.? Finally, D discovers an injured bird and brings it home from the park. D is stunned when the strange bird speaks to him and reveals that she is really a guiding spirit that has been held hostage by ghost soldiers who died in Brooklyn at the start of the American Revolution. As Nuru?s chosen host, D must carry her from Brooklyn to the African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan, but the ghost soldiers won?t surrender their prize without a fight. With the help of Hakeem and Nyla, D battles the Nether Beings who lurk underground, feeding off centuries of rage and pain. But it takes an unexpected ally to help the trio reach the ship that will deliver the innocent souls of the dead back to Nuru?s realm. An urban fantasy infused with contemporary issues and historical facts, Ship of Souls by Zetta Elliott will keep teen readers gripped until the very end.         

Award-winning New York Times Book Review poetry columnist David Orr delivers an engaging, amusing, and stimulating tour through the world of poetry. With echoes of Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, Orr’s Beautiful & Pointless offers a smart and funny approach to...  more

Award-winning New York Times Book Review poetry columnist David Orr delivers an engaging, amusing, and stimulating tour through the world of poetry. With echoes of Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, Orr’s Beautiful & Pointless offers a smart and funny approach to appreciating an art form that many find difficult to embrace.

A collection of thirty short fictions by Ethel Rohan

We live in the era of the geek. Computer nerds are our titans of industry; comic-book heroes are our Hollywood idols; the Internet is our night on the town. Clearly, the geeks know something that other folks don?t?something we could all do well to learn from.   So here it is: Geek Wisdom....  more

We live in the era of the geek. Computer nerds are our titans of industry; comic-book heroes are our Hollywood idols; the Internet is our night on the town. Clearly, the geeks know something that other folks don?t?something we could all do well to learn from.   So here it is: Geek Wisdom. Painstakingly gathered and interpreted by a diverse team of hardcore nerds who?ve spent years poring over the most beloved texts of the modern-day imagination. Beginning with some 200 of the most powerful and oft-cited quotes from movies (?Do, or do not?there is no ?try??), television (?The truth is out there?), comics (?With great power comes great responsibility?), science, the Internet, and more, Geek Wisdom offers illuminating insights into the eternal truths to be found therein. Yes, this collection of mini-essays is by, for, and about geeks?but it?s just so surprisingly profound, the rest of us would have to be dorks not to read it.

One Pulitzer Prize, five Newbery Medals, three Newbery Honors, two Caldecott Medals, one Caldecott Honor, three National Book Awards, seven National Book Award nominations, and five Coretta Scott King Awards. This is only a partial list of all accolades earn by the contributors of this...  more

One Pulitzer Prize, five Newbery Medals, three Newbery Honors, two Caldecott Medals, one Caldecott Honor, three National Book Awards, seven National Book Award nominations, and five Coretta Scott King Awards. This is only a partial list of all accolades earn by the contributors of this book.      This inspired collection of short stories is based on the original illustrations of Chris Van Allburg in his esteemed and mysterious The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, originally published in 1984, and features many remarkable, best-selling authors in the worlds of both adult and children's literature: Sherman Alexie, M.T. Anderson, Kate DiCamillo, Cory Doctorow, Jules Feiffer, Stephen King, Tabitha King, Lois Lowry, Gregory Maguire, Walter Dean Myers, Linda Sue Park, Louis Sachar, Jon Scieszka, Lemony Snicket, and Chris Van Allsburg himself.      Van Allsburg's Harris Burdick illustrations have evoked such wonderment and imagination since Harris Burdick's original publication in 1984; many have speculated or have woven their own stories to go with his images. More than ever, the illustrations send off their eerie call for text and continue to compel and pick at the reader's brain for a backstory--a threaded tale behind the image. In this book, we've collected some of the best storytellers to spin them.