Ruby Dee
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English
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Description
Intimate reflections on loving and living from an American treasure.
My One Good Nerve is an exuberant collection of writings in the down-home tradition by that incomparable icon of the human spirit, Ruby Dee. Married for 50 years to fellow actor Ossie Davis, Dee has led an astonishingly full life. But she has never forgotten where she comes from as an African American woman. Fans who have admired and drawn strength over the years from Dee's outspoken...
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English
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2023 Summer Reading - Read Outside Your Comfort Zone: Frequently Challenged Books
Adult - National Library Week
ALA Most Challenged Books
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Adult - National Library Week
ALA Most Challenged Books
More Lists...
Description
Eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove, an African-American girl in an America whose love for blonde, blue-eyed children can devastate all others, prays for her eyes to turn blue, so that she will be beautiful, people will notice her, and her world will be different. The story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove, the tragic heroine of Toni Morrison's haunting first novel, grew out of her memory of a girlhood friend who wanted blue eyes. Shunned by the town's...
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Their Eyes Were Watching God, an American classic, is the luminous and haunting novel about Janie Crawford, a Southern Black woman in the 1930s, whose journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired writers and readers for close to 70 years. This poetic, graceful love story, rooted in Black folk traditions and steeped in mythic realism, celebrates boldly and brilliantly African-American culture and heritage....
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English
Description
A recently discovered collection of folktales celebrating African American oral tradition, community, and faith..."splendidly vivid and true."—New York Times
Every Tongue Got to Confess is an extensive volume of African American folklore that Zora Neale Hurston collected on her travels through the Gulf States in the late 1920s.
The bittersweet and often hilarious taleswhich range from longer narratives about God,
...5) Whitewash
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English
Description
When Helene Angel walks home from school with her older brother she is attacked by a street gang and painted white. The effect on Helene and her family is devastating. Helene locks herself in her room, her brother blames himself for not having successfully defended his sister, and the media descends on their neighborhood, completely disrupting her small family. But an outpouring of love and understanding from Helene's friends, classmates, and family...
6) Champagne
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English
Description
CHAMPAGNE is the true story of a young teenage girl whose mother is incarcerated for murder. Living in a Catholic Children's home run by an order of nuns, she provides poignant commentary about her mother, her own situation, and her outlook for the future. Starring the voice of the real-life Champagne, this award-winning film shows how hope can spring forth even in the most challenging of times. Featuring the voices by Ruby Dee and Linda Lavin.
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English
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Description
Fast-talking Jack McCall says whatever it takes to close a deal. After stretching the truth with a spiritual guru, he suddenly finds his life depending on a magical tree with 1,000 leaves, one for every word he has left. Now Jack's got to stop talking and conjure up some outrageous ways to communicate or he's a goner.
11) Passing glory
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English
Description
An inspiring reality-based story of a talented all-black New Orleans prep basketball team that defies convention by competing against an all-white championship team.
12) The stand
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English
Description
Millions perish, and as small, isolated frightened bands unite, the answers to their perpetual questions to justify this end of civilization are bared in their dreams--revelations that urge some to embrace a path of virtue and others one of darkness. As the opposing forces separate into two camps, the noble elements try to shield themselves from their corrupt enemy.
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English
Description
"Buck, an ex-Union Army Cavalry sergeant becomes a scout for freed slaves heading to the Colorado frontier. Tagging along with him are his wife and a Bible-thumping con artist known as The Preacher. Attacked by racist bounty hunters determined to return the former slaves to a life of sharecropping in Louisiana, Buck and his followers must summon all the courage they have in order to reach their destination and help settle the wild West"--Container....
17) Edge of the city
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English
Description
If you need a job Charlie Malik can find a spot for you in the dockside railyards. All he needs in return is that you show up on time, work hard, and kick back part of your pay. Two New York City longshoremen, Axel Nordmann, an Army deserter, and Tommy Tyler, an easy-going freight car loader, join forces against a corrupt New York waterfront union official. The two share a bond that cuts across society's black/white divide.
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English
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Description
Members of an African American family living in a cramped Chicago apartment, in this deeply resonant tale of dreams deferred. Following the death of their patriarch, the Youngers await a life insurance check they hope will change their circumstances, but tensions arise over how best to use the money.
20) Tower to heaven
Author
Language
English
Description
When Yaa, who loves to talk while she works, hits the sky god one too many times with her pestle he disappears high up into the heavens and the villagers decide to build a tower to heaven to find him.