Showing results by narrator "Bahni Turpin" in All Categories

They were best friends. They were collaborators, literary gadflies, and champions of the common people. They were the leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance. Zora Neale Hurston, the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Langston Hughes, the author of "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" and "Let America Be America Again", first met in 1925, at a great gathering of black and white literati, and they fascinated each other.

In this shocking novel of a young girl alone on the streets, Donald Goines delves into yet another facet of the ghetto experience - the dark, despair-ridden world of a black girl's soul.

Sandra took to the streets when she was eight years old and tried to fight off the hunger pangs by shoplifting and moving into the profits of drug pushing. Then she met Chink, and with him she discovered love and affection...as well as rape and murder.

Hattie McDaniel is best known for her performance as Mammy, the sassy foil to Scarlett O’Hara in the movie classic Gone with the Wind. Her powerful performance won her an Oscar® and bolstered the hopes of Black Hollywood that the entertainment industry was finally ready to write more multidimensional, fully realized roles for Blacks. But despite this victory, and pleas by organizations such as the NAACP and SAG, roles for Blacks continued to denigrate the African American experience.

Enter a vanished and unjust world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where Black maids raise white children, but aren't trusted not to steal the silver. There's Aibileen, raising her 17th white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son's tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue and white Miss Skeeter, home from college, who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared. No one would believe they'd be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another.

Thirty years ago, a young woman was murdered, a family was lynched, and New Orleans saw the greatest magical massacre in its history. In the days that followed, a throne was stolen from a queen. On the anniversary of these brutal events, Clement and Cristina Trudeau—the sixteen-year-old twin heirs to the powerful, magical, dethroned family—are mourning their father and caring for their sick mother. Until, by chance, they discover their mother isn’t sick—she’s cursed. Cursed by someone on the very magic council their family used to rule. Someone who will come for them next.

There are shelves of memoirs about overcoming the death of a parent, childhood abuse, rape, drug addiction, miscarriage, alcoholism, hustling, gangbanging, near-death injuries, drug dealing, prostitution, or homelessness. Cupcake Brown survived all these things before she'd even turned 20.

Robert and Mkiwa Livingston are happily ensconced in their tranquil life in Geneva, Switzerland, when Robert's best friend drops dead from a brain aneurysm, sparking a mid-life crisis. Nostalgic for the New England of his youth, Robert begs his wife for a chance to go back to his native America. As the Livingstons settle into their new home in Marblehead, Massachusetts, they - along with the rest of the country - become engrossed in a popular TV show called Quiet Time, about a family who decide to give up all electronic devices and smartphones for one year.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a strange book hidden in the library stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to a subterranean library, hidden far below the surface of the earth.

Surviving a shipwreck en route to London from Jamaica was just the start of Jemina St. Maur's nightmare. Suffering from amnesia, she was separated from anyone who might know her, and imprisoned in Bedlam. She was freed only because barrister Daniel Thackery, Lord Ashbrook, was convinced to betray the one thing he holds dear: the law. Desperate to unearth her true identity, Jemina's only chance is to purloin dangerous secrets with help from The Widow's Grace - which means staying steps ahead of the formidable Daniel, no matter how strongly she is drawn to him....

Although millions of westerners practice yoga simply for its health benefits, this multifaceted discipline has far more to offer. In The Jewel of Abundance, author Ellen Grace O’Brian reveals an overlooked aspect of yoga: its powerful techniques for attaining prosperity. Drawing upon the ancient Vedic tradition of Kriya Yoga (the yoga of practice), she shows us how spirituality and earthly success can complement each other, leading to realization of the higher self.

All Amara wants for her birthday is to visit her father’s family in New York City - Harlem, to be exact. She can’t wait to finally meet her Grandpa Earl and cousins in person and to stay in the brownstone where her father grew up. Maybe this will help her understand her family - and herself - in new way. But New York City is not exactly what Amara thought it would be. It’s crowded, with confusing subways and suffocating sidewalks, and her father is too busy with work to spend time with her and too angry to spend time with Grandpa Earl.

When Jessi's mom goes back to work, Aunt Cecilia moves in with the Ramseys to help out. Jessi is mortified that she has a baby-sitter and can't stand her aunt's bossy ways.

Basic training is over. For 11-year-old Robbi, the real work on the Laddertop station begins…even as its strange, dark secrets grow more compelling. With the help of mentally linked robot companions, she and an elite crew of children perform the dangerous maintenance work on the Power Web. But only Robbi keeps having urgent dreams from The Givers, the alien species who bestowed upon humans all the Laddertop technology. 

Jessi's Christmas and Kwanzaa seasons are overshadowed by a car accident in which Jessi's baby brother, Squirt, is injured, and the difficult time proves challenging to her family's holiday spirit.

Everyone's favorite space boy, Hilo, is just settling into life on earth (Bowling? Knock-knock jokes? Outstanding!) when strange portals begin opening up all over town. And holy mackerel! Even stranger creatures are coming through them! But it will take more than a giant mutant chicken, a viking hippo, a magical warrior cat, or even a few million killer vegetables to stop Team Hilo...er, won't it? Can Hilo, DJ, and Gina figure out how to send these creatures back to their worlds before they destroy the Earth?

After a difficult five years, at age forty-three, Nina Morgan Clarke’s time has finally arrived. With an ex-husband relocated across the country, her father bouncing back after the loss of his beloved wife, and her daughter, Xandra, thriving at boarding school, Nina is stepping into her dream job as a trifecta: a first-generation, Black female head of the storied Royal-Hawkins School. To mark the moment, Nina and her best friend, Marisol, take a long-overdue girls’ trip to celebrate the second half of Nina’s life—which is shaping up to be the best part of her life.

Cristina and Clement Trudeau have conjured the impossible: justice. They took back their family’s stolen throne to lead New Orleans’ magical community into the brighter future they all deserve. But when Cris and Clem restored their family power, Valentina Savant lost everything. Her beloved grandparents are gone and her sovereignty has been revoked—she will never be Queen. Unless, of course, someone dethrones the Trudeaus again. And lucky for her, she’s not the only one trying to take them down.

Danielle's parents are so glad she is home, although still battling leukemia, that they allow the nine-year-old girl to do anything she wants - but she decides to joyride in the family car while Jessi is babysitting for her.

Lauren Francis-Sharma's 'Til the Well Runs Dry opens in a seaside village in the north of Trinidad where young Marcia Garcia, a gifted and smart-mouthed 16-year-old seamstress, lives alone, raising two small boys and guarding a family secret. When she meets Farouk Karam, an ambitious young policeman, the risks and rewards in Marcia's life amplify forever.

In "Books and Roses", one special key opens a library, a garden, and clues to at least two lovers' fates. In "Is Your Blood as Red as This?", an unlikely key opens the heart of a student at a puppeteering school. "'Sorry' Doesn't Sweeten Her Tea" involves a "house of locks", where doors can be closed only with a key - with surprising unobservable developments. And in "If a Book Is Locked There's Probably a Good Reason for That Don't You Think", a key keeps a mystical diary locked (for good reason).