English Heritage

From imaginative child to visionary storyteller, Toni Morrison was a fiercely inspiring writer that helped change the world. This poetic picture book is part love letter and part biography, praising the power of this Nobel Prize winner. With its tender refrain, listeners will know how much Morrison's stories—and their own—mean to the world. She was loved—and so are they!

Listen to the sound of survival, courage, and democracy—the soundtrack of America. Hear Billie Holiday's raspy, mournful voice, and tap your foot to Louis Armstrong's trumpet. Scream with James Brown and bop your head to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Can you spot the 80+ references to artists like Robert Johnson, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimi Hendrix, Whitney Houston, Lauryn Hill, and Beyonce?

Surviving in Black Skin is an illuminating virtual journey within the black skin of the author whose life was abruptly uprooted from his southern home in Mobile, Alabama, and transplanted onto the western coast of Los Angeles, California. The listener learns that his family's abrupt transplantation was part of a much larger southern exodus of people in black skins in reaction to the tortuous lynching of a 14-year-old kid named Emmitt Till. It's quite a paradox that the continued (6500 between 1865 and 1950), like the late George Floyd, didn't limit the murders to the South.

Before the outsider, now Chief Heads Off, brought the Elk Dogs (horses) to the People, their strategy had always been to flee or hide from their mortal enemies, the Head Splitters. Now the People live in peace, but the young warriors long for war.

Jamie Pamela Rasmussen recounts the long and fascinating history of the place, focusing on the stories of inmates and the struggles by prison officials to provide opportunities for reform while keeping costs down. Tales of prominent prisoners, including Pretty Boy Floyd, Sonny Liston, and James Earl Ray, provide intrigue and insight into the institution’s infamous reputation. The Missouri State Penitentiary provides a fitting account of an institution that was part of Missouri’s history for well over a century.

Honeybee is a collection of raw, honest, and intimate conversations with oneself that lead you on a journey of reflection. By writing truthfully about the intricacies of her experiences, Rideau’s first collection of work is one that will speak to the very depths of those who read it, inspiring a will to question, heal and empower.

Europe, on the eve of the Second World War, and a Jewish family feels the Nazi danger closing in. Led by their indomitable mother, Marie, the Reesers make a daring escape from under the watchful eyes of the Gestapo, fleeing their comfortable home in Czechoslovakia to safety and a new life in Canada. Their lives are saved, but all else is lost, including four beautiful and valuable paintings that Marie loved.

In this immersive novel, Zuravleff weaves Russian fairy tales and fables into a family saga within the storied American landscape. The challenges facing immigrants-and the fragility of citizenship-are just as unsettling and surprising today as they were 100 years ago.

Discreetly disguised as a boy, Brook travels to Texas with a tantalizing young army captain and his Indian guide. There she finds her father who welcomes her with open arms. But Brook's stepmother and Ram, her handsome stepbrother, resent her. When she accidently discovers Ram's underhanded schemes, she knows that her life is in danger. Isolated on the ranch, is there anywhere she can go for help? Would she dare to turn to Captain Jeremy Grant for help?

John Hare lies dying in the desert until he is discovered and saved by the kind and generous rancher, August Naab. As Hare is nursed back to health on Naab’s ranch, he finds himself irresistibly attracted to Naab’s adopted daughter, Mescal. But Mescal is being relentlessly pursued by Holderness, a man who is not to be trusted. Hare is soon drawn into a web of adventure and intrigue over land, water, and the heart of a beautiful woman, all set against the sweeping backdrop of the Wild West.

Summer storms can bring unwelcome surprises. During the rainiest July on record for the people of Ventris County in Oklahoma, in the midst of a violent thunderstorm, a stranger is murdered. When a friend becomes the second person to die under suspicious circumstances, local sleuth Darcy Campbell is drawn into the investigation. Evidence points toward someone she cares about, but has loyalty blinded her to the truth? Danger is closer to Darcy and her mother, Flora, than either of them suspect.

After a human corpse from a gruesome murder is discovered at the Carlton County Feed Yard, Sheriff Sam Abbott, Undersheriff Lottie Albright, and her deputy husband know their resources are going to be overstretched. Still, none of their team or the neighboring law enforcement in western Kansas welcomes the idea of a regional crime center.

The Civil War posed a critical test of the young nation's character, endurance, and will to survive. Coming only two generations after the nation's founding, the secession of Southern states challenged the very existence of the United States. "America's most monumental drama and morality tale" comes alive in this brilliant collection from America's leading history magazine, as selected by its current editor-in-chief, Edwin S. Grosvenor.

Drawing on a lifetime of military experience, Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall, "one of our most distinguished military writers" ( New York Times), delivers this unflinching history of the war that was supposed to end all wars. From the perspective of more than half a century, Marshall examines the blunders and complacency that turned what everyone thought would be a brief campaign and an easy victory into a relentless four-year slaughter that left 10 million dead and 20 million wounded.

Here are the stories of political power struggles, reconstruction, western expansion, Ellis Island immigrants, the rise of American tycoons and labor unions, and the country's entry into World War I.

Alexandra Ziolkowska-Boehm's "Open Wounds: A Native American Heritage" was inspired by her great uncle, sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski,who in response to the Lakota Sioux Indian Chief Henry Standing Bear's request "tell my story in stone", decided to sculpt Sioux Chief Crazy Horse from a mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Ziolkowska-Boehm explores the real story of Crazy Horse, as well as the real story of the American Indians. She discovers the incredible role Indians played in the World Wars, and she also learns that Indians and their languages and customs are unique to each tribe.

Proverbs of culture and wisdom from around the world. Including a diversified look at cultures around the world.

In a time of societal darkness, Mira Hastings and Grayson Stevens join a cadre of brave individuals who stand against a juggernaut of evil by putting their lives on the line to rescue ill-fated youngsters from certain death. In a bold attempt to bring down the beast, they publicly expose the greed and corruption that drives the system. Declared enemies of the state, Mira and Gray are forced underground as they flee the wrath of a vengeful government.

Georgia Rae Winston’s life in the farming community of Wildcat Springs, Indiana, has found a nice, quiet rhythm. She’s dating Detective Cal Perkins, and everyone predicts wedding bells - if only Cal weren’t so consumed with work. But then Clara Alspaugh, the town prodigal, comes home after 38 years. She just so happens to be the woman who broke Georgia’s dad’s heart back in high school.

Rural America is struggling. The average farmer is now 57 years old. Family agriculture is gradually fading, and prime farmland is often converted into environmentally harmful applications. But food cultivation has ecological consequences, too. Farms consume 80 percent of the nation’s water. Although they often prevent sprawling development, improve water quality, or provide wildlife habitat, they also pollute rivers, drain wetlands, or emit destructive greenhouse gasses.