Showing results for "childrens audio books" in African American

1907: Twelve-year-old Celestine spends most of his time locked in an attic room of a large house by the sea. Taken from his homeland and treated as an unpaid servant, he dreams of his family in Africa even if, as the years pass, he struggles to remember his mother’s face, and sometimes his real name. Decades later, Lowra, a young orphan girl born into wealth and privilege, will find herself banished to the same attic.

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson received the Coretta Scott King Award for her children’s book Almost to Freedom. Here she relays the extraordinary story of Bass Reeves, a lawman in the Old West who escaped slavery to become one of the most successful U.S. Marshals in history.

In this evocative short piece, Candace worries that her mother, Annie, has reached an emotional breaking point. When her best friend loses her battle with cancer, Annie is acting in uncharacteristic ways, seemingly less concerned than ever about what her friends and neighbors think of her - a troubling development in her daughter’s eyes. But while Candace may think she knows her mother better than anyone, something deeper lingers beneath the surface, and times of hardship have a way of bringing us closer together than ever.

Carson McCullers was all of 23 when she published her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. She became an overnight literary sensation, and soon such authors as Tennessee Williams were calling her "the greatest prose writer that the South [has] produced." The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter tells an unforgettable tale of moral isolation in a small southern mill town in the 1930s.

Meet Hickey, an American school teacher in his late 30s, an American school teacher who burns his bridges with the school board and goes to Africa as an aid worker. Working for an agency in Nairobi, one of his jobs is to drive food and medical supplies to Southern Sudan to an aid station run by Ruth, a middle-aged woman, who acts as nurse, doctor, hospice worker, feeder of starving children, and witness. Ruth is gruff but efficient, and Hickey, who is usually drawn to youth and beauty, is struck by her devotion. Returning to Nairobi, he can’t forget what he has seen.

In the segregated South of the mid-1900s, 14-year-old Nell bears witness to a world that embraces the oppression of women. She is fascinated with the prospect of being an independent person - but when she turns 16, she is married off and brought to the city of Boston as a bride. Nell is a shy girl who must quickly learn how to be a wife and mother. She quickly discovers that she must acquire new skills to navigate the unknown territory of the North, as well as her relationship with her husband, Henry, who is controlling and emotionally abusive.

In Mules and Men, some of the rich cultural heritage of black America is revealed and preserved. In the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston returned to her home town of Eatonville, Florida, to collect and record the oral histories, songs, and sermons, many dating back to slavery times, that she remembered hearing as a child. These highly metaphorical folktales, "big old lies", and powerful songs helped her to recover her history, and preserve an important part of American culture.

Returning to the city that inspired his first prize-winning book, Lost in the City, Jones has filled this new collection with people who call Washington, D.C., home. Yet it is not the city's power brokers that most concern him but rather its ordinary citizens.

Nothing can mend a broken heart quite like family. Sherry has struggled all her life to understand who she is, where she comes from, and, most important, why her mother slapped her cheek one summer afternoon. The incident has haunted Sherry, and it causes her to dig into her family's past. Like many family histories, it is fractured and stubbornly reluctant to reveal its secrets. But Sherry is determined to know the full story. In a few days' time, her extended family will gather for a reunion, and Sherry sets off across the country with her mother, Dumpling, to join them.

He watched as she screamed and yelled with every strike that the man made to her face. From her mouth, she spit blood that was rolling down her face. He continued to watch the man repeatedly hit and kick the woman in the stomach, again and again."Noooo stop! Please stop!" as she yelled his closed fist went upside her head. Michael knew he had to do something to stop the man from beating the beautiful woman.

Stories provide portals into other worlds, both real and imagined. The promise of escape draws people from all backgrounds to speculative fiction, but when people of color seek passageways into the fantastic, the doors are often barred. The Dark Fantastic is an engaging and provocative exploration of race in popular youth and young adult speculative fiction. Grounded in her experiences as YA novelist, fan-fiction writer, and scholar of education, Thomas considers four black girl protagonists from some of the most popular stories of the early 21st century.

With Black Ice dead after Michael beheads him, Envy, Mike, and all his victims can finally live a normal life, but the nightmares are far from over. Rachel is the only one that can feel the truth in her soul that the drama is long from being over.

This recently rediscovered and critically acclaimed 1937 novel tells the story of Janie Crawford, a long-legged, articulate, and fiercely independent African-American woman of the 1930s. Janie's quest for identity includes three marriages and a return to her roots. Despite her struggles, Janie never defines herself by regret, fear, or unrealistic dreams, and refuses to be anything but her own person.

With Mike in a coma, the doctors say he may never awaken again. Envy blames herself for Mike's state of condition, but she had no choice. Michael, Jr. wants to put the past behind him and act as if none of the chaos in his life has ever happened. He yearns for a regular, normal life. How could that ever happen when the Devil, in the form of Black ice, is lurking around every corner and within every shadow waiting for an opportunity to strike?

With the notorious Black Ice missing or assumed dead, Michael Jr. and Rachel try to live a normal life. Will Rachel be able to fight the urge of wanting to get high? Will Michael Jr. be able to fight the blood that's running through his veins? Or will he be succumb to what he hates most, the demon he calls a father, or the life of being once a child of a crackhead break him?

When private detectives Heaven and Garrick are approached by a polygamy escapee to find her long-lost missing child, they must keep romantic entanglements aside and infiltrate an underground prostitution ring run by ruthless extremists. After solving the case involving the murder of the mayor of Los Angeles' daughter and actress Lauren Jenkins, Heaven and Garrick started a private investigation business together and mutually agreed to keep their previous romantic relationship strictly professional.

The Devil is real and his name is Black Ice and he's coming for you next and you'll never see him coming until it's too late and you're in the back of a van kicking and screaming. Michael did everything in his power to kill his father Black Ice but somehow he has returned and deep down he knows he can't stop him alone.

A man who can control shadows is terrorizing the magical community of London. Performing a grand ritual that could rip the very fabric of reality apart. Rafe and Ana are reluctant to investigate, it's definitely not their kinda gig - too apocalyptic for their liking.... But when they discover their connection to the Prince of Darkness, they find themselves pulled in to his scheme whether they like it or not. Because the Shadowmancer is not working alone. Someone is pulling the strings.

Join twenty-four-year-old Tara Walker on a poignant odyssey as she unearths her secret journal, a powerful testament to her life's trials and tribulations. From her raw, often harrowing childhood, marred by addiction, alcoholism, and predators, to the unwavering support of her hardworking parents, Tara's inspiring journey unfolds. Through adversity and rejection, she emerges as a resilient, intelligent young woman who confronts her traumatic past with unwavering determination, ultimately embracing the true meaning of life, happiness, family, and unconditional love.

Praise Song for My Children celebrates twenty-one years of poetry by one of the most significant African poets of this century. Patricia Jabbeh Wesley guides us through the complex and intertwined highs and lows of motherhood and all the roles that it encompasses: parent, woman, wife, sister, friend. Her work is deeply personal, drawing from her own life and surroundings to convey grief, the bleakness of war, humor, deep devotion, and the hope of possibility.