From the Island Books blog June 26, 2020 So our doors are open. We can better serve the public. You can buy what is on our shelves directly, instead of through Instagram or our website. That is fantastic! But, your books are still taking weeks if not months to get here. We aren’t able to …
Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Nickel Boys, is out in paperback. . . The Nickel Boys follows Elwood Curtis as he is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy. Curtis falls in with a fellow “delinquent” named Turner, and the novel explores the very different reactions to the terrible system that …
This gorgeous picture book features affirming, uplifting, nurturing text and stunning artwork representing 22 national parks. (Don’t miss the backmatter that gives more details about the parks shown.) When I read this book at storytime and invited the audience to join in the refrain of “you are home,” the inclusion, warmth, and pride brought tears …
. . .we have Wes Moore’s Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City. While the title sounds like it could be about any number of locations during the last few months, Five Days is about life in Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray, back in 2015. Moore (with assistance from Erica L. …
Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments contains some of the most imaginative, inventive, and radical history writing I’ve ever encountered. Taking as her subjects the black women excluded from the US historical archive, Hartman challenges and unsettles dominant understandings of who “makes” history. In vibrant and ecstatic prose, Hartman tells the story of how the wayward, the …
Treat yourself to an immersion in the community feeling and sense of self-worth that shine throughout this gorgeous book. It’s difficult to choose, but I think my favorite pages might be the second-to-last about tipping the barber. This picture book has earned many crowns: Winner of the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Young Readers A Newbery …
As farmers’ markets and CSA boxes offer up the richest bounties, you might crave fresh recipe inspiration to go with your fresh produce. Seattle chef Makini Howell, owner of Plum Bistro in Capitol Hill, shares over 60 plant-based recipes in her gorgeous cookbook of “gratifying vegan dishes,” Plum. These recipes are delicious ways to incorporate …
…and speaking of building better tomorrows, we’re delighted to see Ibram X. Kendi has cleverly put out a baby board book. Timing is everything, and nothing happens overnight in book publishing, which makes the arrival of Antiracist Baby this week a marvel. Kendi, whose Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America and How to …
What a clever and realistic accounting of how we demonstrate what it looks like to stand up and be a true friend: through sickness and health, through buggers and bullies, swiping pocket change and wiping out on skateboards, first crushes and first kisses. This story is told through ten vignettes of individual kids who are …
Compelling narrative. Fantastic pre-teen middle reader that does an excellent job of exploring race and race-related issues via the clever mechanism of a young Black student who begins her middle school journey with some color-blind ideas and anti-Black biases that prevent her from forming meaningful relationships with other Black students. Great book to approach students …
