Books

"Be Kind is a sweet and thoughtful picture book about kindness that gets the message across without being heavy handed." - Seira Wilson, Amazon Editor

A New York Times bestseller!

“These days, it seems more important than ever for books to show young people how to act with thoughtfulness, civility, and kindness.” ―The New York Times Book Review

When Tanisha spills grape juice all over her new dress, her classmate wants to make her feel better, wondering: What does it mean to be kind?

From asking the new girl to play to standing up for someone being bullied, this moving story explores what kindness is, and how any act, big or small, can make a difference―or at least help a friend.

With a gentle text from the award-winning author of Sophie's Squash, Pat Zietlow Miller, and irresistible art from Jen Hill, Be Kind is an unforgettable story about how two simple words can change the world.

A New York Times bestseller!

“These days, it seems more important than ever for books to show young people how to act with thoughtfulness, civility, and kindness.” ―The New York Times Book Review

When Tanisha spills grape juice all over her new dress, her classmate wants to make her feel better, wondering: What does it mean to be kind?

From asking the new girl to play to standing up for someone being bullied, this moving story explores what kindness is, and how any act, big or small, can make a difference―or at least help a friend.

With a gentle text from the award-winning author of Sophie's Squash, Pat Zietlow Miller, and irresistible art from Jen Hill, Be Kind is an unforgettable story about how two simple words can change the world. Perfect for fans of If All the Animals Kissed Goodnight.

One of Chicago Public Library's "Best of the Best Books 2018"

Praise for Beaver Girl

"Clever, soulful, and charming!"

-Ben Goldfarb

"This book is the antidote we need in the face of climate change!"

-Mary Alice Monroe

"Beaver Girl is the novel 'beaver believers' have been waiting for."

-Alison Zak

"This is a book that I could easily read for fun or assign in one of the science classes I teach as an example of communicating science through story."

-Emily Fairfax

"Vivid and endearing!"

-Midge Raymond

"Both sobering and hopeful, Beaver Girl is a story for our times."

-Frances Backhouse

"There is no better time for this beautiful book."

-Kate Hopper

"A gripping read that explores survival and care."

-Julie R. Enszer

"This book is essential for our time."

-Amanda K. Jaros

The main character of Beaver Girl is Livia, a 19-year-old girl who has been through a pandemic and climate collapse. She wakes in her house to wildfires that are encroaching upon her neighborhood, and she goes into a nearby forest, Congaree National Park, to try to escape the wildfires. There she befriends a beaver family. The reader learns about beavers as a keystone species for our environment. For example, most of Texas and New Mexico, which we think of as desert areas now, were lush green forests before the Europeans got rid of all the beavers for the fur trade. Beavers create these wetland areas, and even after an individual family has moved on those beaver ponds become part of the water table, which can help us during times of drought in later years. The novel has elements of a morality tale that shows what we have done to help bring about climate disaster. It is also set in a post-apocalyptic time and shows what beavers and humans could do together to restore faith and strength and a sense of family and community.

'Phenomenal ... Offers us possibilities for rescuing the concept of democracy from its fatal entanglement with racial, heteropatriarchal capitalism'—Angela Y. Davis

'Embraces the unruliness of collective struggle, and recognizes freedom not as a destination but practice—an abolitionist, feminist, anticapitalist, antiracist, radically inclusive practice'—Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams

'A compelling and inspiring book that belongs in our movements and our classrooms'—Chandra Talpade Mohanty, author of Feminism Without Borders

'An elegantly written masterpiece'—Barbara Ransby, author of Making All Black Lives Matter

Become Ungovernable is a provocative new work of political thought setting out to reclaim “freedom”, “justice”, and “democracy”, revolutionary ideas that are all too often warped in the interests of capital and the state. Revealing the mirage of mainstream democratic thought and the false promises of liberal political ideologies, H.L.T. Quan offers an alternative approach: an abolition feminism drawing on a kaleidoscope of refusal praxes, and on a deep engagement with the Black Radical Tradition and queer analytics.

With each chapter anchored by episodes from the long history of resistance and rebellions against tyranny, Quan calls for us to take up a feminist ethic of living rooted in the principles of radical inclusion, mutuality and friendship as part of the larger toolkit for confronting fascism, white supremacy, and the neoliberal labor regime.

H.L.T. Quan is a political theorist, award-winning filmmaker and Associate Professor of Justice and Social Inquiry in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. Quan is the author of Growth Against Democracy and editor of Cedric J. Robinson.

In honor of the journey Nicki and Stephen Pappas have been on individually and together, they wrote Becoming Egalitarian. In Becoming Egalitarian, they examine their limited (and limiting) beliefs about marriage and gender roles. They begin with why they were drawn to complementarianism and explore how their theology shifted to egalitarianism.

Becoming Egalitarian is their story, but it’s not just their story. There are untold numbers of people who have been harmed by religious ideologies that prop up unhealthy power dynamics. Nicki and Stephen found that by actively dismantling the hierarchy in their relationship, they could become true partners. Becoming Egalitarian isn’t an answer book. Rather, it is a vulnerable and authentic exploration of how to find a healthier partnership when operating from a place of mutuality.

By: Micah House (Author), 2024, Paperback

You have known her as the wise and loving mother and grandmother to her family of witches, but what was Olympia Blanchard's life like BEFORE she had children?

She was an eager, and sometimes timid, child who grew into a complicated woman. Fearless, defiant, and determined to hold her own in a dangerous world, this is the Olympia before she had to set an example-before she became the role model of legend to her descendants. Her past wasn't always pretty, but it was never dull.

Follow your favorite grandmother from the beginning, before she gained her wisdom, before she became the matriarch to her illustrious and powerful family. If you think you knew her from the BLANCHARD WITCHES series, you only had half the story! 

Welcome to 1940's Daihmler, Alabama and follow the childhood and young adulthood of Olympia Blanchard, her sister Pastoria, and their dearest friend...that's right!Zelda. Experience for yourself all those adventures she used to tell her grandchildren about. 

It wasn't easy BECOMING OLYMPIA, now discover for yourself how a great witch's journey began.

Radical Proposals Book 1

Lucien Saxby is a journalist, writing for the society pages. The Honourable Aubrey Fanshawe, second son of an earl, is Society. They have nothing in common, until a casual encounter leads to a crisis.

Aubrey isn’t looking for love. He already has it, in his long-term clandestine relationship with Lord and Lady Hernedale. And Lucien is the last man Aubrey should want. He’s a commoner, raised in service, socially unacceptable. Worse, he writes for a disreputable, gossip-hungry newspaper. Aubrey can’t afford to trust him when arrest and disgrace are just a breath away.

Lucien doesn’t trust nobs. Painful experience has taught him that working people simply don’t count to them. Years ago, he turned his back on a life of luxury so his future wouldn’t depend on an aristocrat’s whim. Now, thanks to Aubrey, he’s becoming entangled in the risky affairs of the upper classes, antagonising people who could destroy him with a word.

Aubrey and Lucien have too much to hide—and too much between them to ignore. Rejecting the strict rules and closed doors of Edwardian society might lead them both to ruin… but happiness and integrity alike demand it.

AN EDWARDIAN POLYAMOROUS ROMANCE

THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF THIS BOOK INCLUDES GUTTER ROSES: A RADICAL PROPOSALS SHORT STORY

Discover the infinite realms of asexual love across sci-fi, fantasy, and contemporary stories

From a wheelchair user racing to save her kidnapped girlfriend and a little mermaid who loves her sisters more than suitors, to a slayer whose virgin blood keeps attracting monsters, the stories of this anthology are anything but conventional. Whether adventuring through space, outsmarting a vengeful water spirit, or surviving haunted cemeteries, no two aces are the same in these 14 unique works that highlight asexual romance, aromantic love, and identities across the asexual spectrum.

Explore expansive aromantic love and connection in stories across genres

These twelve stories showcase aromantic people breaking generational curses, finding acceptance, and protecting the vulnerable while highlighting the infinite ways people find connection and love without romance.

A high school matchmaker learns a lesson about love. A rebellious spaceship pilot defies his culture’s compulsory coupling. A boy magically transforms banned romance novels into living dragons. A teen immune to romance, and the zombie virus, fights to survive the apocalypse. Being Aro is full of stories throughout real and imagined worlds that cross genres and disrupt the status quo.

Based on the research that race, gender, consent, and body positivity should be discussed with toddlers on up, this read-aloud board book series offers adults the opportunity to begin important conversations with young children in an informed, safe, and supported way.

Developed by experts in the fields of early childhood and activism against injustice, this topic-driven board book offers clear, concrete language and beautiful imagery that young children can grasp and adults can leverage for further discussion.

While young children are avid observers and questioners of their world, adults often shut down or postpone conversations on complicated topics because it's hard to know where to begin. Research shows that talking about issues like race and gender from the age of two not only helps children understand what they see, but also increases self-awareness, self-esteem, and allows them to recognize and confront things that are unfair, like discrimination and prejudice.

This second book in the series begins the conversation on gender, with a supportive approach that considers both the child and the adult. Stunning art accompanies the simple and interactive text, and the backmatter offers additional resources and ideas for extending this discussion.

"With a thoughtful introduction by Mikki Kendall, it will remind you why she was loved, honored, challenged and respected." - Ms. Magazine

“This new collection is essential reading for both longtime readers of hooks and new fans seeking to learn more about her groundbreaking contributions to cultural and intellectual movements.” - Electric Lit

"Wide-ranging and insightful, this makes for a solid primer on hooks’s ideas." --Publishers Weekly

"I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance."
—bell hooks

bell hooks was a prolific, trailblazing author, feminist, social activist, cultural critic, and professor. Born Gloria Jean Watkins, bell used her pen name to center attention on her ideas and to honor her courageous great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks.

hooks’s unflinching dedication to her work carved deep grooves for the feminist and anti-racist movements. In this collection of 7 interviews, stretching from early in her career until her last interview, she discusses feminism, the complexity of rap music and masculinity, her relationship to Buddhism, the “politic of domination,” sexuality, and love and the importance of communication across cultural borders. Whether she was sparking controversy on campuses or facing criticism from contemporaries, hooks relentlessly challenged herself and those around her, inserted herself into the tensions of the cultural moment, and anchored herself with love.

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A spellbinding novel that transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. With a new afterword by the author. 

This "brutally powerful, mesmerizing story” (People) is an unflinchingly look into the abyss of slavery, from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner.

Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. 

“A masterwork.... Wonderful.... I can’t imagine American literature without it.” —John Leonard, Los Angeles Times

The “best woman” in her brother’s wedding tells a little white lie in her quest to get the girl—her lifelong crush and the maid of honor—in this wildly entertaining debut novel about bad decisions and life’s messiest transitions.

“Irresistibly fresh, bright, funny, and bursting with singular voice, this is the kind of romance I’ve been waiting for.”—Casey McQuiston, New York Times bestselling author of The Pairing

Julia Rosenberg loves her brother. Really loves him. Enough to: be the “best woman” at his wedding; leave behind her hard-won New York life, brilliant best friends, and drag brunches for Boca Raton, Florida; entertain the uptight bride-to-be and her vicious cronies; try (and fail) to dodge the hometown hookup buddy she can’t resist; and navigate the tricky dynamics with her divorced parents.

She’s not that nervous. Her family stood by her when she came out as a woman a few years ago. And it’s just one week in Florida—a week of old memories and sisterly duties that will force Julia to confront the tensions that have been bubbling beneath the surface of her closest relationships. No big deal.

When it turns out that Kim Cameron, the gorgeous, self-assured girl that she crushed on hard in high school, is the maid of honor, Julia panics. She tells a teensy little lie to win Kim’s favor—a lie that snowballs out of control and threatens to undermine the blossoming attraction between them and complicate an already challenging relationship with her family. Using her wit, charm, and a suitcase full of couture “borrowed” from a pop star, Julia just might survive the horde of clone-like bridesmaids, go-kart racing bachelor parties, and alcohol-fueled speeches. But she won’t make it out unscathed. As best woman, she’s making the worst decisions of her life.

An utterly contemporary send-up of My Best Friend’s Wedding and a riotous coming-of-age novel, Best Woman is rife with crackling wit and devastating poignancy and announces Rose Dommu as an exciting voice in fiction.

Twenty percent of proceeds will benefit EveryLibrary, which supports libraries and fights censorship.

The wet dreams of book lovers come to life in these seven erotic stories of library liaisons, bookstore hookups, and book convention orgies. Gay, straight, sapphic, cis and trans--everyone has a place between the stacks.

A bookstore meet-cute gets steamy. Closeted gay men find connection in libraries. Roommates act out scenes from a smutty book. A man meets his favorite author-and gets invited to the author's dungeon. A she-orc uses books to send messages to her human crush in the university library. An orgy at a book convention turns into a backdoor gangbang for one author.

All are made in the image and likeness of God. If this is what we believe, then trans people, like all people, reflect something of God, and not just in the ways that they share in common with others, but also in the ways that they are different. They remind us that God is beyond all of our categories, even gender. In this book, Tara Soughers explores theology from the position of a trans ally-a parent of a trans young adult as well as priest. What does it mean about God and about humans, that there is not a strict gender binary? How can we affirm and include what we have learned about the permeability of boundaries to affirm those whose path does not follow traditional cultural stereotypes, and how might the broadening help us to understand the God who is never two for Christians, but both one and three? What gifts does this broader understanding bring to the church?