A powerful, unsettling, and unflinching exploration that forces readers to confront lynching as a devastating legacy of white childhood conditioning, and to reckon with the corrupting force of a system that trained children to become its willing executionersStrung Up examines how the lynching of Black children became not an aberration, but a normalized feature of American racial violence. Drawing on meticulous archival research and vivid narrative storytel...

A necessary challenge to the cultural tradition of corporeal punishment in Black homes—and its connections to white supremacy.Encourages positive, nonviolent discipline for those rearing, teaching, and caring for children of color.Why do so many African Americans have such a special attachment to whupping children? Studies show that nearly 80 percent of Black parents see spanking, popping, pinching, and beating as reasonable, effective ways...

An astonishing coming-of-age memoir by a young woman who survived the foster care system and went on to become an award-winning journalist.On a rainy night in November 1999, a shoeless Stacey Patton, promising student at NYU, approached her adoptive parents' house with a gun in her hand. She wanted to kill them. Or so she thought.No one would ever imagine that the vibrant, smart, and attractive Stacey had a childhood from hell. After all, with God-fearing, ...

Based on the author’s real experience, this charming and hilarious picture book follows a solitary homeowner who insists she’s much too busy to adopt a stray cat…until the cat adopts her.Staceypants lives in a beautiful yellow house in Charm City where she stays busy fixing things, planting pretty flowers, and keeping her home clean. One day, she finds a scruffy gray cat perched on her fence. But Staceypants definitely does not want a cat. Cats scratch fur...

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Stacey Patton penned this moving memoir describing her tumultuous childhood growing up first in a state institution and then in a fractured foster family. She makes a strong case to illustrate how the brutal legacy of slavery continues to affect African-American families today. "... a document ... striking in its endeavor to relate a unique individual experience to broader communal life."-Kirkus Reviews

A powerful, unsettling, and unflinching exploration that forces readers to confront lynching as a devastating legacy of white childhood conditioning, and to reckon with the corrupting force of a system that trained children to become its willing executionersStrung Up examines how the lynching of Black children became not an aberration, but a normalized feature of American racial violence. Drawing on meticulous archival research and vivid narrative storytel...

An instant #1 New York Times bestseller—Jaycee Dugard’s raw and powerful memoir, her own story of being kidnapped in 1991 and held captive for more than eighteen years.In the summer of June of 1991, I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother that loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen.For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse. For eighteen years I was not allo...

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A fascinating and eye-opening look at how American schools have helped build and reinforce an infrastructure of racial inequality . . . a must-read for every American parent and educator.”—Esquire“Though the argument of this book is bleak, it illuminates a path for a more just future that is nothing short of dazzling.”—Oprah Daily“This book will transform the way you see this country.”—Michelle Alexander, author of

The first book to cover the entirety of disability history, from pre-1492 to the presentDisability is not just the story of someone we love or the story of whom we may become; rather it is undoubtedly the story of our nation. Covering the entirety of US history from pre-1492 to the present, A Disability History of the United States is the first book to place the experiences of people with disabilities at the center of the American narrative. In many ways, ...

"Fascinating . . . chart[s] a gradual but decisive shift in the way Americans have understood sex and its meaning in their lives." — New York Times Book ReviewThe first full length study of the history of sexuality in America , Intimate Matters offers trenchant insights into the sexual behavior of Americans, from colonial times to today. D'Emilio and Freedman give us a deeper understanding of how sexuality has dramatically influenced politics and c...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PLUTARCH AWARD FOR BEST BIOGRAPHYWINNER OF THE ASJA AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHY/HISTORYA riveting history about the little-known rivalry between Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett that profoundly shaped the fight for reproductive rights in America.In the 1910s, as the American birth control movement was born, two leaders emerged: Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett. While Sanger would go on to found Planned Parenthood, Dennett’s name has largely fad...

Why the modern world forgot how to sleepWhy is sleep frustrating for so many people? Why do we spend so much time and money managing and medicating it, and training ourselves and our children to do it correctly? In Wild Nights, Benjamin Reiss finds answers in sleep's hidden history -- one that leads to our present, sleep-obsessed society, its tacitly accepted rules, and their troubling consequences.Today we define a good night's sleep very narrowly:...