Nonfiction Crime

As compelling as fiction, The Mystery of Beautiful Nell Cropsey tells the dramatic story of the disappearance of nineteen-year-old Nell Cropsey from her riverside home in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, in November 1901. Bloodhounds, detectives, divers, and even a psychic were brought in to search for her, and the case immediately became a national sensation. Bland Simpson, who first heard the tale as an Elizabeth City schoolboy, weaves this true story into a colorful nonfiction account, told in three first-person voices.

Discover the truth about the Second Amendment, the NRA, and the United States' centuries-long fight over guns in this first-of-its-kind book for middle-grade listeners. Hana Bajramovic's Whose Right Is It?: The Second Amendment and the Fight over Guns reveals how a once obscure amendment became the focus of daily heated debate. The book will show young listeners how gun legislation has always been a part of American history and how money, power, and race have long dictated our ability to own guns.

Dovey Johnson Roundtree was most famous for her successful defense of an indigent Black man accused of the murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer, a prominent White Washington, DC, socialite, in 1965. Despite her triumph in this high-profile case, Roundtree continued to represent the poor and the underserved. She was the first lawyer to bring a bus-desegregation case before the Interstate Commerce Commission, clinching the ruling that enabled Robert F. Kennedy to enforce bus integration. She was also among the first Black women to enter the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.

In this key civil rights and social justice book for young listeners, Scipio Africanus Jones—a self-taught attorney who was born enslaved—leads a momentous series of court cases to save twelve Black men who'd been unjustly sentenced to death.

Even after the institution of slavery became illegal, the legacy of slavery continued through injustices created by the Jim Crow laws. Learn more about these discriminatory laws that have shaped America's past and present. Inspired by a belief that knowledge is power, Read Woke Books seek to amplify the voices of people who are not white, provide information about groups that have been disenfranchised, share perspectives of people who have been underrepresented or oppressed, challenge social norms and disrupt the status quo, and encourage readers to take action in their community.