Robin Miles
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A TODAY Show Read With Jenna Book Club Pick!
A powerful novel about the construction of the Panama Canal, casting light on the unsung people who lived, loved, and labored there
It is said that the canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first, it must be built. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more
...2) Home
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It's been a year since Binti and Okwu enrolled at Oomza University. A year since Binti was declared a hero for uniting two warring planets. A year since she found friendship in the unlikeliest of places. And now she must return home to her people, with her friend Okwu by her side, to face her family and face her elders. But Okwu will be the first of his race to set foot on Earth in over a hundred years, and the first ever to come in peace. After generations...
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Binti has returned to her home planet, believing that the violence of the Meduse has been left behind. Unfortunately, although her people are peaceful on the whole, the same cannot be said for the Khoush, who fan the flames of their ancient rivalry with the Meduse. Far from her village when the conflicts start, Binti hurries home, but anger and resentment has already claimed the lives of many close to her. Once again it is up to Binti, and her intriguing...
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Two sisters are suddenly sent from their home in Brooklyn to Barbados to live with their grandmother, in this stunning debut novel This lyrical novel of community, betrayal, and love centers on an unforgettable matriarchal family in Barbados. Two sisters, ages ten and sixteen, are exiled from Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister, Dionne, live for the summer of 1989...
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Irene Sabatini makes her celebrated debut with this powerful novel set against the tumultuous backdrop of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Teenagers Lindiwe and Ian meet briefly after Ian is accused of a terrible crime. The friendship they begin endures many tests-and one devastating secret.
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True Story of Courage and Compassion in a School Under Siege. As 870 children waited in fear, their elementary school rushed into lockdown mode. As the nation faced yet another Sandy Hook story of tragedy, one woman rewrote the ending. Yet the story doesn't start with those first steps Michael Hill took into that Atlanta elementary school. It starts with Antoinette Tuff, a woman who faced her own pain, hurt, and rejection, yet held onto grace, faith,...
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In 1949, jazz pianist Sonny-Rhett Payne left New York for Paris, to be free from racism and his family's disapproval. Now Sonny's grandson has come to New York for a memorial concert. There, the 8-year-old begins to understand the forces that drove Sonny into exile. Paule Marshall is an award-winning author and distinguished professor of creative writing at New York University.
8) Oreo
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A pioneering, dazzling satire about a biracial black girl from Philadelphia searching for her Jewish father in New York City Oreo is raised by her maternal grandparents in Philadelphia. Her black mother tours with a theatrical troupe and her Jewish deadbeat dad disappeared when she was an infant, leaving behind a mysterious note that triggers her quest to find him. What ensues is a playful, modernized parody of the classical odyssey of Theseus with...
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Literary Ladies Guide to the Writing Life serves as a beacon of inspiration.
Popular author Nava Atlas explores what it is like to live the writing life through the journals, letters, and diaries of twelve celebrated women writers, including such renowned authors as Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Madeleine L'Engle, Anais Nin, George Sand, Edith Wharton, and Virginia Woolf.
Atlas's own insightful commentary, newly updated, lifts the curtain on these...
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When Ben Underwood became blind at the age of two, anyone would have thought he faced a life full of hardship and uphill challenges a world full of things he'd never be able to see and activities he'd never be able to enjoy. But as far as his mom, Aquanetta Gordon, was concerned, nothing was impossible for Ben…and so he accomplished the incredible. Known as the boy who could see with sound," Ben mastered human echolocation the ability to detect...
11) Beyond the Night
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In Marlo Schalesky's breathtaking tale of soulmates divided by tragedy and united by love, Maddie teeters between life and death. Her husband Paul begs her to remember their love, regain consciousness, and come home. She recalls pushing Paul away-just before their love found voice and just as her blindness stole her hopes and dreams. And then she remembers Paul's unselfish, undying love. "A gripping, tender love story with a poignant twist."-Susan...
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In just 1,337 words, the Declaration of Independence changed the world, but curiously it is now rarely read from start to finish, much less understood. Unsettled by this, Danielle Allen read the text quietly with students and discovered it animating power. “Bringing the analytical skills of a philosopher, the voice of a gifted memoirist, and the spirit of a soulful humanist to the task, Allen manages to ... find new meaning in Thomas Jefferson’s...
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One hilarious Harlem family is on a mission to find the perfect way to celebrate their Papa's fortieth birthday while discovering more about their mysterious grandparents in this heartfelt romp and latest installment to the New York Times bestselling series, perfect for fans of the Penderwicks.
14) Between Goodbyes
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Popular author Anita Bunkley is a Career Achievement Award Winner in African-American Fiction from Romantic Times and was voted one of the 50 favorite African-American authors of the 20th century. Between Goodbyes is her riveting tale of Broadway star Niya Londres, who is planning her extravagant Acapulco wedding. But there's one problem. Niya hasn't said "yes" yet-to any of the three men who've popped the question.
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In 1971, nineteen citizens of Excelsior, a farming community in South Africa's rural Free States, were charged with breaking apartheid's Immorality Act, which forbade sexual relations between blacks and whites on the pretext of avoiding miscegenation. The women were jailed as they awaited trial and their white counterparts were released on bail. In the end, the state withdrew the charges, but the accused women's lives, already complicated, became...
16) Greenwichtown
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Young Fay Myrtle lives in a shack outside a Jamaican plantation until her sister moves her to the Greenwichtown ghettos. Lonely and confused, Fay struggles every day to survive in the face of desperate poverty. Despite her squalid surroundings, she receives an education and grows into a strong woman. But when she loses the man she loves, she has no other choice than to find work off the island to support the twins she leaves behind.
Greenwichtown...
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From an acclaimed African writer, a novel about family, freedom, and loyalty. When Bella learns of the murder of her beloved half-brother by political extremists in Mogadiscio, she's in Rome. The two had different fathers but shared a Somali mother, from whom Bella's inherited her freewheeling ways. An internationally known fashion photographer, dazzling but aloof, she comes and goes as she pleases, juggling three lovers. But with her teenage niece...
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When a whirlwind romance leads to a brutal murder and the disappearance of a young Nigerian woman, PI Emma Djan resorts to dangerous undercover work to track her down in Accra.
Just as things at work are slowing down for PI Emma Djan, an old friend of her boss's asks for help locating his missing daughter. According to her father, Ngozi had a bright future ahead of her when she became secretive and withdrawn.
Suddenly, all she wanted to do was...
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In Teaching to Transgress, Bell Hooks–writer, teacher, and insurgent black intellectual–writes about a new kind of education, educations as the practice of freedom. Teaching students to "transgress" against racial, sexual, and class boundaries in order to achieve the gift of freedom is, for hooks, the teacher's most important goal. Bell Hooks speaks to the heart of education today: how can we rethink teaching practices in the age of multiculturalism?...
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With Soldier, world-renowned poet June Jordan presents a deeply personal memoir of her formative years in post-World War II Harlem, where she was raised the daughter of dirt-poor West Indian immigrants. June's first 12 years were at turns peaceful and tumultuous, sowing all the seeds of her later poetry.