Browse A-Z Authors: Hn-Hs

"Delicious, sustaining, sweet and salty, and a keeper in the library of your heart." -Naomi Rhode, author of More Beautiful than Diamonds: The Gift of Friendship; "The stories in this lovely book offer endless opportunities for reaching out to others in friendship, care, laughter, and prayer." -Lucinda Secrest McDowell, author of Dwelling Places and Ordinary Graces. Filled with inspiring stories that will touch your heart and tickle your funny bone, Let's Be Friends is one woman's journey of what happened when she opened the doors of her home and her heart and said yes to making new friends in new ways. Chapter by chapter, you'll meet dozens of women of all ages, whose lives became entwined with Elizabeth's through book clubs and Bible studies and neighborhood parties and lunches that lasted long past dessert. Where two or three are gathered, food is certain to make an appearance, so you'll also find delicious original recipes sprinkled throughout the pages of Let's Be Friends. More than simply a collection of entertaining stories, Let's Be Friends: What My Sister-Friends Taught Me about Faith, Food, and Fun offers practical ways to nurture meaningful friendships that will enrich your life and deepen your faith, including creative ideas to try with your own friends and new traditions to make each season bright.

In 1995, Chris Holbrook burst onto the southern literary scene with Hell and Ohio: Stories of Southern Appalachia, stories that Robert Morgan described as "elegies for land and lives disappearing under mudslides from strip mines and new trailer parks and highways." Now, with the publication of Upheaval, Holbrook more than answers the promise of that auspicious debut. In eight interrelated stories set in Eastern Kentucky, Holbrook again captures a region and its people as they struggle in the face of poverty, isolation, change, and the devastation of land and resources at the hands of the coal and timber industries. In the title story, Haskell sees signs of disaster all around him, from the dangers inherent in the strip-mining machinery he and his coworkers operate to the accident waiting to happen when his son plays with a socket wrench. Holbrook employs a native's ear for dialect and turns of phrase to reveal his characters' complex interior lives. In "The Timber Deal," two brothers -- Russell, a recovering addict recently released from prison, and Dwight, who hasn't worked since being injured in a coal truck accident -- try to convince their upwardly mobile sister, Helen, to agree to lease out timber rights to the family land. Dwight is unable to communicate his feelings, even as he seethes with rage: "Helen can't see past herself, is what it is. If John James had fractured his back in two places, it'd be a different story. If he'd broke his neck, it'd be a different story told." Written with a gritty, unflinching realism reminiscent of the work of Larry Brown and Cormac McCarthy, the stories in Upheaval prove that Holbrook is not only a faithful chronicler and champion of Appalachia's working poor but also one of the most gifted writers of his generation.

Fiction, short stories; 140 pages. Short stories portraying modern Southern Appalachian Life.

Includes stories by Rebecca Bailey, Michelle Boisseau, Mary Lou Brown-Byrd, Leon Driskell, Paul Griner, James Baker Hall, Jim R. Hinsdale, Chris Holbrook, Lisa Koger, Ed McClanahan, Jim Wayne Miller, Sean Jeter Naslund, Chris Offutt, Eugene Sisco, Jeffrey Skinner, Frederick Smock, Allison Thorpe, Jeff Worley.

A celebration of holiday poetry, fiction, essays, recipes, and songs by more than sixty of the Bluegrass state's finest writers. Gathered here are writings from some of the legendary voices of Kentucky -- and the nation -- as well as original Christmas stories and poetry from some of the state's emerging talents. Among the contributors to this handsome collection are Kentucky's visionaries, storytellers, historians, singers, cooks, children's authors, and poets, including all five Kentucky Poet Laureates. A delight for anyone interested in Kentucky literature, history, or traditions, A Kentucky Christmas promises to be a wonderful holiday gift, a treasured family keepsake, and a necessary addition for libraries and for personal collections.

With an introduction by Wade Hall, Morris Grubbs has sifted through vintage classics, little-known gems, and stunning debuts to assemble this collection of forty stories by popular and critically acclaimed writers. In subtle and profound ways they challenge and overturn accepted stereotypes about the land their authors call home, whether by birth or by choice. Kentucky writers have produced some of the finest short stories published in the last fifty years, much of which focuses on the tension between the comforts of community and the siren-like lure of the outside world. Arranged chronologically, from Robert Penn Warren's "Blackberry Winter" to Crystal E. Wilkinson's "Humming Back Yesterday," these stories are linked by their juxtaposition of departures and returns, the familiar and the unknown, home and beyond. Contributors: Robert Penn Warren, Caroline Gordon, James Still, Jane Mayhall, Elizabeth Hardwick, Dean Cadle, Jesse Stuart, Billy C. Clark, Janice Holt Giles, A.B. Guthrie, Jr., Hollis Summers, Ed McClanahan, Sallie Bingham, Robert Hazel, Jack Cady, Jim Wayne Miller, David Madden, Gayl Jones, Jane Stuart, Gurney Norman, Walter Tevis, Bobbie Ann Mason, Joe Ashby Porter, Leon V. Driskell, Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, Richard Cortez Day, Sena Jeter Naslund, Pat Carr, Wendell Berry, James Baker Hall, Lisa Koger, Barbara Kingsolver, Normandi Ellis, Guy Davenport, Kim Edwards, Chris Holbrook, Paul Griner, Chris Offutt, Dwight Allen, Crystal E. Wilkinson. Edited by Morris Allen Grubbs; with an introduction by Wade Hall and an afterword by Charles E. May.

Fiction, short stories. Contributors: Leon V. Driskell, Constance Alexander, Garry Barker, Chris Beyers, Marjorie M. Bixler, Pat Carr, Chris Holbrook, Martin Kent, Michele Moore, Barbara Presnell, Deborah Reed, Henry Riekert, Peggy Steele, David Stewart, Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, Allison Thrope.

Stitching together girlhood memories with the finest threads of innocence, feminist intellectual bell hooks presents a powerfully intimate account of growing up in the South. A memoir of ideas and perceptions, Bone Black shows the unfolding of female creativity and one strong-spirited child's journey toward becoming a writer. She learns early on the roles women and men play in society, as well as the emotional vulnerability of children. She sheds new light on a society that beholds the joys of marriage for men and condemns anything more than silence for women. In this world, too, black is a woman's color--worn when earned--daughters and daddies are strangers under the same roof, and crying children are often given something to cry about. hooks finds good company in solitude, good company in books. She also discovers, in the motionless body of misunderstanding, that writing is her most vital breath.

San Francisco Chronicle bestseller Wounds of Passion is a memoir about writing, love, and sexuality. With her customary boldness and insight, Bell Hooks critically reflects on the impact of birth control and the women's movement on our lives. Resisting the notion that love and writing don't mix, she begins a fifteen-year relationship with a gifted poet and scholar, who inspires and encourages her. Writing the acclaimed book Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism at the age of nineteen, she begins to emerge as a brilliant social critic and public intellectual. Wounds of Passion describes a woman's struggle to devote herself to writing, sharing the difficulties, the triumphs, the pleasures, and the dangers. Eloquent and powerful, this book lets us see the ways one woman writer works to find her own voice while creating a love relationship based on feminist thinking. With courage and wisdom she reveals intimate details and provocative ideas, offering an illuminating vision of a writer's life.

In Art on My Mind, bell hooks, a leading cultural critic, responds to the ongoing dialogues about producing, exhibiting, and criticizing art and aesthetics in an art world increasingly concerned with identity politics. Always concerned with the liberatory black struggle, hooks positions her writings on visual politics within the ever-present question of how art can be an empowering and revolutionary force within the black community. Autobiography, philosophy, political criticism.

With grace and insight, celebrated writer bell hooks untangles the complex personae of women writers. Born and raised in the rural South, hooks learned early the power of the written word and the importance of speaking her mind. Her passion for words is the heartbeat of this collection of essays. Remembered Rapture celebrates literacy, the joys of reading and writing, and the lasting power of the book. Once again, these essays reveal bell hooks's wide-ranging intellectual scope; she is a universal writer addressing readers and writers everywhere. Contains chapters on Zora Neale Hurston, Emily Dickinson, Ann Petry, Lorraine Hansberry, and Toni Morrison.

Drawing on both her roots in Kentucky and her adventures with Manhattan Coop boards, Where We Stand is a successful black woman's reflection--personal, straight forward, and rigorously honest--on how our dilemmas of class and race are intertwined, and how we can find ways to think beyond them.

A groundbreaking work of feminist history and theory analyzing the complex relations between various forms of oppression. Ain't I a Woman examines the impact of sexism on black women during slavery, the historic devaluation of black womanhood, black male sexism, racism within the recent women's movement, and black women's involvement with feminism. First published in 1981.

The acclaimed first volume in bell hooks' "Love Song to the Nation" "The word 'love' is most often defined as a noun, yet . . . we would all love better if we used it as a verb," writes bell hooks as she comes out fighting and on fire in All About Love. Here, at her most provocative and intensely personal, bell hooks (renowned scholar, cultural critic, and feminist) skewers our view of love as romance. In its place she offers a proactive new ethic for a people and a society bereft with lovelessness. As bell hooks uses her incisive mind and razor-sharp pen to explore the question "What is love?" her answers strike at both the mind and heart. In thirteen concise chapters, hooks examines her own search for emotional connection and society's failure to provide a model for learning to love. Razing the cultural paradigm that the ideal love is infused with sex and desire, she provides a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for individuals and for a nation.

What does it mean to call a place home? Who is allowed to become a member of a community? When can we say that we truly belong? These are some of the questions of place and belonging that renowned cultural critic bell hooks examines in her new book, Belonging: A Culture of Place. Traversing past and present, Belonging charts a cyclical journey in which hooks moves from place to place, from country to city and back again, only to end where she began--her old Kentucky home. hooks has written provocatively about race, gender, and class; and in this book she turns her attention to focus on issues of land and land ownership. Reflecting on the fact that 90% of all black people lived in the agrarian South before mass migration to northern cities in the early 1900s, she writes about black farmers, about black folks who have been committed both in the past and in the present to local food production, to being organic, and to finding solace in nature. Naturally, it would be impossible to contemplate these issues without thinking about the politics of race and class. Reflecting on the racism that continues to find expression in the world of real estate, she writes about segregation in housing and economic racialized zoning. In these critical essays, hooks finds surprising connections that link of the environment and sustainability to the politics of race and class that reach far beyond Kentucky. With characteristic insight and honesty, Belonging offers a remarkable vision of a world where all people--wherever they may call home--can live fully and well, where everyone can belong.

In these twelve essays, bell hooks digs ever deeper into the personal and political consequences of contemporary representations of race and ethnicity within a white supremacist culture. First published in 1992.

'A series of dialogues between and interviews with two of the foremost black intellectuals in America today, this volume is of enormous importance and offers rewarding reading.' Publishers WeeklyIn this provocative and captivating dialogue, hooks and West grapple with the dilemmas, contradictions, and joys of Black intellectual life. Creating a spiritual, progressive, feminist, and ultimately organic definition of Black intellectuality, they passionately discuss issues ranging in subject matter from theology and the Left, to contemporary music, film, and fashion.

Renowned visionary and theorist bell hooks began her exploration of the meaning of love in American culture with the critically acclaimed All About Love: New Visions. She continued her national dialogue with the bestselling Salvation: Black People and Love. Now hooks culminates her triumphant trilogy of love with Communion: The Female Search for Love. Intimate, revealing, provocative, Communion challenges every female to courageously claim the search for love as the heroic journey we must all choose to be truly free. In her trademark commanding and lucid language, hooks explores the ways ideas about women and love were changed by feminist movement, by women's full participation in the workforce, and by the culture of self-help. Communion is the heart-to-heart talk every woman -- mother, daughter, friend, and lover -- needs to have.

A genuine feminist politics always brings us from bondage to freedom, from lovelessness to loving....There can be no love without justice.--from the chapter "To Love Again: The Heart of Feminism" In this engaging and provocative volume, bell hooks introduces a popular theory of feminism rooted in common sense and the wisdom of experience. Hers is a vision of a beloved community that appeals to all those committed to equality, mutual respect, and justice. hooks applies her critical analysis to the most contentious and challenging issues facing feminists today, including reproductive rights, violence, race, class, and work. With her customary insight and unsparing honesty, hooks calls for a feminism free from divisive barriers but rich with rigorous debate. In language both eye-opening and optimistic, hooks encourages us to demand alternatives to patriarchal, racist, and homophobic culture, and to imagine a different future. hooks speaks to all those in search of true liberation, asking readers to take look at feminism in a new light, to see that it touches all lives. Issuing an invitation to participate fully in feminist movement and to benefit fully from it, hooks shows that feminism--far from being an outdated concept or one limited to an intellectual elite--is indeed for everybody.

When Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center was first published in 1984, it was welcomed and praised by feminist thinkers who wanted a new vision. Even so, individual readers frequently found the theory "unsettling" or "provocative." Today, the blueprint for feminist movement presented in the book remains as provocative and relevant as ever. Written in hooks's characteristic direct style, Feminist Theory embodies the hope that feminists can find a common language to spread the word and create a mass, global feminist movement.

Mainstream rhetoric has made a concerted effort to polarize African Americans and Latinos, emphasizing differences in language and religion, while designating one or the other as the favored minority at will. In Witness, Amalia Mesa-Bains and bell hooks invite us to reexamine this politically popular binary and consider which differences are manufactured and which are real. In Witness, Mesa-Bains and hooks explore their own similarities and differences, sharing the ways their childhoods, families, and work have shaped their political activism, teaching, and artistic expression. Drawing on shared experiences of sexism, classism, and racism, hooks and Mesa-Bains show how people from divergent cultural backgrounds can work together for radical social change. While the black/Latino divide and the increasing cross-community political collaboration has been addressed in progressive newspapers and magazines, Witness, an inclusive call to reflect and act, is the first of its kind to look at these issues in depth. And Amalia Mesa-Bains, a pioneer scholar and producer of Chicana art, with bell hooks, one of the most acclaimed of African American theorists-prove an unparalleled match for the job. bell hooks is one of the leading public intellectuals of her generation. She has written extensively on the emotional impact of racism and sexism, particularly on black women, as well as the importance of political engagement with art and the media. In her recent work on love, relationships, and community, she shows how emotional health is a necessary component to effective resistance and activism. Amalia Mesa-Bains is an artist, curator, and writer who has initiated comprehensive exhibitions of Latino art, including Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation and Mi Alma, Mi Tierra, Mi Gente: Contemporary Chicana Art. Her artwork incorporates various aspects of Chicano/a history, culture, and folk traditions, exploring religion, ritual, and female rites of passage. She won a MacArthur Fellowship in 1992. First published in 2006.

One of our country's premier cultural and social critics, bell hooks has always maintained that eradicating racism and eradicating sexism must go hand in hand. But whereas many women have been recognized for their writing on gender politics, the female voice has been all but locked out of the public discourse on race. Killing Rage speaks to this imbalance. These twenty-three essays are written from a black and feminist perspective, and they tackle the bitter difficulties of racism by envisioning a world without it. They address a spectrum of topics having to do with race and racism in the United States: psychological trauma among African Americans; friendship between black women and white women; anti-Semitism and racism; and internalized racism in movies and the media. And in the title essay, hooks writes about the "killing rage"--the fierce anger of black people stung by repeated instances of everyday racism--finding in that rage a healing source of love and strength and a catalyst for positive change.

bell hooks, one of America's leading black intellectuals, is also one of our most clear-eyed and penetrating analysts of culture. Outlaw Culture gives us hooks on many of the most important subjects of the contemporary scene, from date rape, censorship, and ideas of race and beauty, to gansta rap, the dilemmas of feminism, and the rise of black intellectuals. Using the mix of essays and sometimes highly personal dialogues for which she is well known, hooks takes on Spike Lee and Naomi Wolf, Malcolm X and Madonna, Camille Paglia, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Ice Cube, and the films The Bodygaurd and The Crying Game.She speaks movingly about male violence against women, about black self-hatred, and about the ways an oppressive society creates its outlaws.

In Reel To Real, bell hooks talks back to films as a way to engage the pedagogy of cinema--the way film teaches its audience. bell hooks comes to film as a cultural critic, fascinated by the issues movies raise--the ways cinema depicts race, sex, and class. Reel To Real collects hooks' classic essays on films such as Paris Is Burningor the infamous "Whose Pussy Is It" essay about Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It, as well as newer work on Pulp Fiction, Crooklyn and Waiting To Exhale. hooks also examines the world of independent cinema. Conversations with filmmakers Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, and Arthur Jaffa are linked with critical essays, including a piece on Larry Clark's Kids, to show that cinema can function subversively as well as maintain the status quo.

World-renowned scholar and visionary bell hooks takes an in-depth look at one of the most critical issues of our time, the impact of low self-esteem on the lives of black people. Without self-esteem everyone loses his or her sense of meaning, purpose, and power. For too long, African Americans in particular have been unable to openly and honestly address the crisis of self-esteem and how it affects the way they perceive themselves and are perceived by others.In her most challenging and provocative book to date, bell hooks gives voice to what many black people have thought and felt, but seldom articulated. She offers readers a clear, passionate examination of the role self-esteem plays in the African-American experience in determining whether individuals or groups succeed or self-sabotage. She considers the reasons why even among "the best and brightest" students at Ivy League institutions "there were young men and women beset by deep feelings of unworthiness, of ugliness inside and outside." She listened to the stories of her students and her peers -- baby boomers who had excelled -- and heard the same sentiments, including deep feelings of inadequacy. With critical insight, hooks exposes the underlying truth behind the crisis: it has been extremely difficult to create a culture that promotes and sustains a healthy sense of self-esteem in African-American communities. With true brilliance, she rigorously examines and identifies the barriers -- political and cultural -- that keep African Americans from emotional well-being. She looks at historical movements as well as parenting and how we make and sustain community. She discusses the revolutionary role preventative mental health care can play in promoting and maintaining self-esteem.Blending keen intellectual insight and practical wisdom, Rock My Soul provides a blueprint for healing a people and a nation.

Acclaimed visionary and intellectual, bell hooks began her exploration of the meaning of love in American culture with the bestselling All About Love: New Visions. Here she continues her love song to the nation with the groundbreaking and soul-stirring Salvation: Black People and Love. Intimate and revolutionary, Salvation is a gift as provocative as it is healing. Written from a historical and cultural perspective, Salvation takes an incisive look at the transformative power of love in the lives of African-Americans. Whether talking about the legacy of slavery, relationships, and marriage in black life, the prose and poetry of Martin Luther King Jr., James Baldwin, Malcolm X, and Maya Angelou, the liberation movements of the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, sexual pain or pleasure, hip-hop and gangsta rap culture, addiction, greed, or the failure of black leadership, hooks lets us know what love's got to do with it. Combining the passionate politics of W E. B. DuBois with fresh, contemporary insights, hooks brilliantly offers new visions that will heal our nation's wounds from a culture of lovelessness. Her writings on love and its inextricable links to race, class, family, history, and popular culture raise one pivotal question: How can we create beloved American communities? Salvation is bell hooks's journey to answer this question-an offering for everyone who cares about the souls of black folk.

In Sisters of the Yam, bell hooks reflects on the ways in which the emotional health of black women has been and continues to be impacted by sexism and racism. Desiring to create a context where black females could both work on their individual efforts for self-actualization while remaining connected to a larger world of collective struggle, hooks articulates the link between self-recovery and political resistance. Both an expression of the joy of self-healing and the need to be ever vigilant in the struggle for equality, Sisters of the Yam continues to speak to the experience of black womanhood. First published in 1993.

Writing is a healing act of power for this woman who rea up in an old school Southern black world where children were meant to be seen and not hear. 'Talking back' was punished with silence. But in the world of woman-talk, where the everyday rules of how to live and how to act were established, hooks made language her birthright. When it comes to bigotry, there is no mincing words; bell hooks talks back. In Talking Back, this voice is as strong and uncompromising as ever but it is also much more personal. She writes about the meaning of feminist consciousness in daily life and about self-recovery, about overcoming white- and male- supremacy, and about intimate relationship, exploring the point where the public and private meet. 'Domination is not just a subject for discourse and books, ' she concludes. 'It is about pain. Even before the words, we remember the pain. First published in 1989.

"When women get together and talk about men, the news is almost always bad news," writes bell hooks. "If the topic gets specific and the focus is on black men, the news is even worse." In this powerful new book, bell hooks arrests our attention from the first page. Her title--We Real Cool; her subject--the way in which both white society and weak black leaders are failing black men and youth. Her subject is taboo: "this is a culture that does not love black males:" "they are not loved by white men, white women, black women, girls or boys. And especially, black men do not love themselves. How could they? How could they be expected to love, surrounded by so much envy, desire, and hate?"

Crosses disciplinary boundaries in major debates on postmodern theory, cultural criticism, and the politics of race and gender. hooks values postmodernism's insights while warning that the fashionable infatuation with "discourse" about "difference" is dangerously detachable from the struggle we must all wage against racism, sexism, and cultural imperialism. First published in 1990.

bell hooks has been called one of America's leading public intellectuals. Created in response to her in-depth discussions with men The Will to Change challenges men to reclaim the sensitivity and love that today's embattled masculinity has forsaken. With her trademark candour and fierce intelligence, hooks answers the most common concerns of men - from fears of intimacy to the loss of their patriarchal place in society. The result is a book that can help men to feel, to need and to desire openly - qualities that will allow them to thrive as they never have before.

What are the conditions needed for our nation to bridge cultural and racial divides? By "writing beyond race," noted cultural critic bell hooks models the constructive ways scholars, activists, and readers can challenge and change systems of domination. In the spirit of previous classics like Outlaw Culture and Reel to Real, this new collection of compelling essays interrogates contemporary cultural notions of race, gender, and class. From the films Precious and Crash to recent biographies of Malcolm X and Henrietta Lacks, hooks offers provocative insights into the way race is being talked about in this "post-racial" era.

In this book, the author shares her philosophy of the classroom, offering ideas about teaching that fundamentally rethink democratic participation. She writes about a new kind of education, education as the practice of freedom. She advocates the process of teaching students to think critically and raises many concerns central to the field of critical pedagogy, linking them to feminist thought. In the process, these essays face squarely the problems of teachers who do not want to teach, of students who do not want to learn, of racism and sexism in the classroom. Teaching students to "transgress" against racial, sexual, and class boundaries in order to achieve the gift of freedom is, for the author, the teacher's most important goal. -- From back cover. "After reading Teaching to Transgress I am once again struck by bell hooks's never-ending, unquiet intellectual energy, an energy that makes her radical and loving." -- Paulo Freire. In Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks--writer, teacher, and insurgent black intellectual--writes about a new kind of education, education as the practice of freedom. Teaching students to "transgress" against racial, sexual, and class boundaries in order to achieve the gift of freedom is, for hooks, the teacher's most important goal. bell hooks speaks to the heart of education today: how can we rethink teaching practices in the age of multiculturalism? What do we do about teachers who do not want to teach, and students who do not want to learn? How should we deal with racism and sexism in the classroom? Full of passion and politics, Teaching to Transgress combines a practical knowledge of the classroom with a deeply felt connection to the world of emotions and feelings. This is the rare book about teachers and students that dares to raise questions about eros and rage, grief and reconciliation, and the future of teaching itself. "To educate is the practice of freedom," writes bell hooks, "is a way of teaching anyone can learn." Teaching to Transgress is the record of one gifted teacher's struggle to make classrooms work.

Ten years ago, bell hooks astonished readers with Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Now comes Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope - a powerful, visionary work that will enrich our teaching and our lives. Combining critical thinking about education with autobiographical narratives, hooks invites readers to extend the discourse of race, gender, class and nationality beyond the classroom into everyday situations of learning. bell hooks writes candidly about her own experiences. Teaching, she explains, can happen anywhere, any time - not just in college classrooms but in churches, in bookstores, in homes where people get together to share ideas that affect their daily lives. In Teaching Community bell hooks seeks to theorize from the place of the positive, looking at what works. Writing about struggles to end racism and white supremacy, she makes the useful point that "No one is born a racist. Everyone makes a choice." Teaching Community tells us how we can choose to end racism and create a beloved community. hooks looks at many issues-among them, spirituality in the classroom, white people looking to end racism, and erotic relationships between professors and students. Spirit, struggle, service, love, the ideals of shared knowledge and shared learning - these values motivate progressive social change. Teachers of vision know that democratic education can never be confined to a classroom. Teaching - so often undervalued in our society -- can be a joyous and inclusive activity. bell hooks shows the way. "When teachers teach with love, combining care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect, and trust, we are often able to enter the classroom and go straight to the heart of the matter, which is knowing what to do on any given day to create the best climate for learning."

In Teaching Critical Thinking, renowned cultural critic and progressive educator bell hooks addresses some of the most compelling issues facing teachers in and out of the classroom today. In a series of short, accessible, and enlightening essays, hooks explores the confounding and sometimes controversial topics that teachers and students have urged her to address since the publication of the previous best-selling volumes in her Teaching series, Teaching to Transgress and Teaching Community. The issues are varied and broad, from whether meaningful teaching can take place in a large classroom setting to confronting issues of self-esteem. One professor, for example, asked how black female professors can maintain positive authority in a classroom without being seen through the lens of negative racist, sexist stereotypes. One teacher asked how to handle tears in the classroom, while another wanted to know how to use humor as a tool for learning. Addressing questions of race, gender, and class in this work, hooks discusses the complex balance that allows us to teach, value, and learn from works written by racist and sexist authors. Highlighting the importance of reading, she insists on the primacy of free speech, a democratic education of literacy. Throughout these essays, she celebrates the transformative power of critical thinking. This is provocative, powerful, and joyful intellectual work. It is a must read for anyone who is at all interested in education today.

Author, activist, feminist, teacher, and artist bell hooks is celebrated as one of the nation's leading intellectuals. Born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, hooks drew her unique pseudonym from the name of her grandmother, an intelligent and strong-willed African American woman who inspired her to stand up against a dominating and repressive society. Her poetry, novels, memoirs, and children's books reflect her Appalachian upbringing and feature her struggles with racially integrated schools and unwelcome authority figures. One of Utne Reader's "100 Visionaries Who Can Change Your Life," hooks has won wide acclaim from critics and readers alike. In Appalachian Elegy, bell hooks continues her work as an imagist of life's harsh realities in a collection of poems inspired by her childhood in the isolated hills and hidden hollows of Kentucky. At once meditative, confessional, and political, this poignant volume draws the reader deep into the experience of living in Appalachia. Touching on such topics as the marginalization of its people and the environmental degradation it has suffered over the years, hooks's poetry quietly elegizes the slow loss of an identity while also celebrating that which is constant, firmly rooted in a place that is no longer whole.

Limited edition of 250 copies. 20 unnumbered pages.
Design: Alex Silberman.

The poetic words of a child implore readers to find out who he really is by looking beyond the skin he's in, and finding their way inside his heart. In their most moving, dramatic, expressive children's book to date, bell hooks and Chris Raschka poignantly reflect the secret desires and needs of every child to be valued and cherished for his mind, his soul, and all he imagines himself to be. Like layers of skin, readers will peel away the pages of this book, and reveal at its heart all that it means to be at once human and humane.

Celebrates the joy and beauty of nappy hair.

Her Mama calls her Girlpie-a sweet treat, homemade with love. And when Girlpie makes a mistake, the love of her mother and father lets her pick up the pieces and make everything right again. Shane W. Evan's resplendent artwork teems with "homemade love," one of the tender nicknames award-winning author bell hooks gives her young heroine. The simple, dynamic text paired with bold, energetic illustrations make this beautiful board book perfect for little hands. First published in 2002.

I be boy. All bliss boy. All fine beat. All beau boy. Beautiful. Famed author bell hooks brings us a tight, exuberant story that captures the essence and energy of what it means to be a boy. Chris Raschka's soulful illustrations buzz with a force that is the perfect match for these powerful words. Praise for Be Boy Buzz: "This spare, poetic riff on young manhood plumbs the delights and contradictions of what it means to be a boy. . . . Hooks's rhythmic blend of brevity and eloquence launches Raschka's trademark visual haiku. . . . This life-affirming book will have readers as much 'in love with being a boy' as are its own utterly irresistible characters." -Publishers Weekly, starred review. "[The] poetry is rhythmic and rolling, each word finessed to fit the pulse of [hooks's] verse. The lilt of the language is contagious, begging to be read aloud. . . . Raschka's mixed media illustrations are an energetic dream. . . . Buy it for the boys and all those who love them." -Bulletin for the Center of Children's Books. First published in 2002.

There's a bad mood on the prowl... Some days our bad, grumpy and wild moods just take over. But the best thing to do is to embrace the feeling, overcome your aggression and be your best self. Children's author bell hooks' soothing, rhythmic text radiates positivity, while Chris Raschka's dynamic art adds compassion and humour to a book that is perfect for all ages. After all, who among us can't relate to being in a bad mood?

DVD; approx. 53 minutes. hooks talks about her experiences writing for alternative publishers and for the mainstream. She reads from some of her work and discusses what it's like to write about race, gender, and class in a publishing world where mediocrity reigns in the marketplace.

DVD; approx. 66 minuets. Originally produced as a documentary: London : University of Westminster, 1997. bell hooks makes a compelling argument for the transformative powers of cultural criticism. She demonstrates how learning to think critically was central to her own self-transformation and how it can play a role in the students' quest for a sense of agency and identity. Includes footage from many films and music videos, and news coverage.

DVD; approx. 87 minutes. Documentary; originally released in 1994. A frank and honest look at black identity in America. Uses incisive storytelling and commentary from prominent black intellectuals. Meant to stir provocative debate and add reinforcement to a bold vision for a humanity that embraces all people. Explodes the myth that black America is monolithic.

DVD; approx. 55 minutes. Originally produced as a motion picture in 1997. Interviews with feminist leaders including Bell Hooks, Gloria Steinem, and Urvsahi Vaid are intercut with documentary sequences to explore the past and present status of the women's movement. Discussing the unique contributions of second wave feminism, they explore their racial, economic and ideological differences and shared vision of achieving equality for women. Introduces feminism's key themes while exposing the cultural fears underlying lesbian baiting, backlash, and political extremism.

DVD; 2 discs; approx. 58 minutes. Disc 1. Voices of power : African-American women (29:00) -- Disc 2. Is feminism dead? (29:00).
In disc 1, Voices of power, African-American women have captured the moral imagination of mainstream America through their essays, novels, poetry, and other artistic endeavors, breaching the static lines of race, gender, and class. How have their relections so clearly articulated the hopes and philosophies of so many? In this program, writers Alice Walker and Bell Hooks and Ohio State University faculty Dr. Martha Wharton and Dr. Valerie Lee examine the emergence of African-American women as popular and powerful voices of social conscience. In disc 2, Is feminism dead?, shows that years after the women's movement opened doors for women, a new generation seems to be questioning the meaning and value of the battles that were fought. Has feminism gone out of style? Leading experts appraise the women's movement as it currently exists and discuss its relevance in today's cultural climate.

DVD; approx. 53 minutes. Hooks talks about her experiences writing for alternative publishers and for the mainstream. She reads from some of her work and discusses what it's like to write about race, gender, and class in a publishing world where mediocrity reigns in the marketplace.

This work lucidates bell hooks' social and educational theory, with emphasis on her 1994 book, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Florence deals with the issues of marginality and cultural alienation that are so prevalent among certain groups within the American society and presents strategies to help develop critical consciousness and affirmation of formerly subordinated cultural traits and characteristics. Her study resonates with current themes raised by critical, feminist and multicultural scholars showing how marginalized groups may be guilty of reinforcing their own status through complicity with the dominant culture's world view, and how education can empower them to demand a more egalitarian society and one that recognizes cultural plurality.

bell hooks' writings have been touchstones for major debates in the "culture wars," fostering insight into many central questions in communication studies. Her work is vital to students and scholars who explore the ways in which media shape our sense of our selves, our roles, and those with whom we interact. This book provides readers with a measured, contextualized introduction to how hooks' writings on media and culture enhance our understanding of key concepts in communication. hooks' insistence on focusing our attention on the workings of power and the impact of history and her willingness to explore connections between individual and group experiences have produced provocative, fruitful conjectures about media and culture.

Although bell hooks has long challenged the dominant paradigms of race, class, and gender, there has never been a comprehensive book critically reflecting upon this seminal scholar's body of work. Her written works aim to transgress and disrupt those codes that exclude others as intellectually mediocre, and hooks' challenge to various hegemonic practices has heavily influenced scholars in numerous areas of inquiry. This important resource thematically examines hooks' works across various disciplinary divides, including her critique on educational theory and practice, theorization of racial construction, dynamics of gender, and spirituality and love as correctives in postmodern life. Ultimately, this book offers a fresh perspective for scholars and students wanting to engage in the prominent work of bell hooks, and makes available to its readers the full significance of her work. Compelling and unprecedented, Critical Perspectives on bell hooks is a must-read for scholars, professors, and students interested in issues of race, class, and gender.

Master's thesis from Michigan State University, Department of Philosophy.

Biographical profiles of important and influential persons of African heritage who form the international black community. Covers persons of various nationalities in a wide variety of fields providing coverage of names found in today's headlines as well as selected individuals from earlier in this century whose influence continues to have an impact on contemporary life.
Volume 5: Hank Aaron; Ali Mahdi Mohamed; Ella Baker; Charles Barkley; Jean-Michel Basquiat; Ralph S Bell; Lerone Bennett, Jr.; Les Brown; Ronald Harmon Brown; Grace Bumbry; Ralph J Bunche; Stokely Carmichael; Kenneth Bancroft Clark; Eldridge Cleaver; Cole Johnnetta B.; Ellis Cose; Silva Benedita da.; Jaye Davidson; Angela Y Davis; Ossie Davis; Ulysses Dove; Marian Wright Edelman; Duke Ellington; John Hope Franklin; S L Gravely; Dennis Green; Rosa Guy; Gordon Henderson; Anita Hill; Natalie Hinderas; Bell Hooks; Lena Horne; Rex Ingram; Roy Innis; Mahalia Jackson; James Weldon Johnson; Jacqueline Joyner-Kersee; Jomo Kenyatta; Vincent Lane; Spike Lee; Hughie Lee-Smith; Joe Louis; Bob Marley; Quett Masire; Walter E Massey; Mark Mathabane; Hattie McDaniel; Mark McEwen; Walter Mosley; Jessye Norman; Julius K Nyerere; Olusegun Obasanjo; Edith S Sampson; Willie O'Ree; Edward Perkins; Alvin F Poussaint; Jerry Rice; Marlon T Riggs; John W Rogers; Leah Sears-Collins; Sleet Sleet Jr; Franklin A Thomas; Henry McNeal Turner; Derek Walcott; Frances Cress Welsing; Cornel West; Michael R White; John Edgar Wideman; Joe Williams; Dave Winfield; Granville Woods; Richard Wright.

When highway US-460 comes through the old family cemetery, the author works to discover his family history so that he can move the graves of his ancestors. With stories of the Hopkins and Prater families who lived around Greasy Creek in Pike County, Kentucky.

Historians have largely ignored the role of Eastern Kentuckians in the Civil War, and the effect of the war on mountain communities. Bruce Hopkins corrects that oversight in Bright Wings to Fly. Here he relates the fierce struggles of the families of Greasy Creek, broken and in poverty, as they deal with the Civil War and its aftermath.

Hearts in Zion is the continuing story of Bruce Hopkins' family during the early 20th century. As the prosperity of industrialization grasps the country in the aftermath of the Civil War, the coal camps of Eastern Kentucky are established. With the coming of the Great Depression the people of Hopkin's homeland face hardship and abandonment, but manage to survive and pass on the stories of their bloodline to yet another generation

Many Kentuckians and fans of intercollegiate athletics are familiar with the name Jim Host. As founder and CEO of Host Communications, he was the pioneer in college sports marketing. Host's prevailing innovation in collegiate sports was the concept of bundled licensing, which encouraged corporate partners to become official sponsors of athletic programs across media formats. Host and his team developed the NCAA Radio Network and introduced what became known as the NCAA's Corporate Partner Program, which employed companies such as Gillette, Valvoline, Coca-Cola, and Pizza Hut to promote university athletic programs and the NCAA at large. Host was involved with the construction of Rupp Arena, the Kentucky Horse Park, and the KFC Yum! Center. But few know his full story. Changing the Game is the first complete account of the entrepreneur's professional life, detailing his achievements in sports radio, management, and broadcasting; his time in minor league baseball, real estate, and the insurance business; and his foray into Kentucky politics, including his appointments under governors Louie B. Nunn and Ernie Fletcher. This memoir provides a behind-the-scenes look at the growth of big-time athletics and offers solutions for current challenges facing college sports.

In his New York Times bestselling debut novel, Silas House introduced himself as an important voice for Appalachia, and indeed, for the entire rural South. In Clay's Quilt, now a touchstone for his many fans, House takes us to Free Creek, Kentucky, where a motherless young man forges his path to adulthood, surrounded by ancient mountains and his blood relatives and adopted kin: his Aunt Easter tied to her faith and foreboding nature; his Uncle Paul, the quilter; the wild girls Evangeline and Alma; and a fiddler whose music calls to Clay's heart. As he struggles to stitch up the void created by his mother's death, Clay pieces together his own life's quilt, all masterfully wrought by House. Blair brings this novel into a beautiful new paperback edition, along with two other Silas House novels, A Parchment of Leaves and The Coal Tattoo. The three novels, which share a common setting and some characters, are companion novels. They may be read individually, in any order, but collectively, they form a rich tableau of life in rural mountain Kentucky in the last century. First published in 2001.

When Silas House made his debut with Clay's Quilt last year, it touched a nerve not just in his home state (where it quickly became a bestseller), but all across the country. Glowing reviews-from USA Today (House is letter-perfect with his first novel), to the Philadelphia Inquirer (Compelling. . . . House knows what's important and reminds us of the value of family and home, love and loyalty), to the Mobile Register (Poetic, haunting), and everywhere in between-established him as a writer to watch. His second novel won't disappoint. Set in 1917, A Parchment of Leaves tells the story of Vine, a beautiful Cherokee woman who marries a white man, forsaking her family and their homeland to settle in with his people and make a home in the heart of the mountains. Her mother has strange forebodings that all will not go well, and she's right. Vine is viewed as an outsider, treated with contempt by other townspeople. Add to that her brother-in-law's fixation on her, and Vine's life becomes more complicated than she could have ever imagined. In the violent turn of events that ensues, she learns what it means to forgive others and, most important, how to forgive herself. As haunting as an old-time ballad, A Parchment of Leaves is filled with the imagery, dialect, music, and thrumming life of the Kentucky mountains. For Silas House, whose great-grandmother was Cherokee, this novel is also a tribute to the family whose spirit formed him.

"Southernmost engages my most deeply hidden fears and hopes . . . I love this book, and for it, I love Silas House." --Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina. Asher Sharp is willing to give up everything for what he believes in. Except his son. In the aftermath of a flood that washes away much of a small Tennessee town, evangelical preacher Asher Sharp offers shelter to two gay men. In doing so, he starts to see his life anew--and risks losing everything: his wife, locked into her religious prejudices; his congregation, which shuns Asher after he delivers a passionate sermon in defense of tolerance; and his young son, Justin, caught in the middle of what turns into a bitter custody battle. With no way out but ahead, Asher takes Justin and flees to Key West, where he hopes to find his brother, Luke, whom he'd turned against years ago after Luke came out. And it is there, at the southernmost point of the country, that Asher and Justin discover a new way of thinking about the world, and a new way of understanding love. In this stunning literary page-turner about judgment, courage, heartbreak, and change, bestselling author Silas House wrestles with the limits of belief, and with love and its consequences.

Life isn't easy for twenty-two year old Easter and her teenage sister Anneth, who were left parentless as young children. While Easter, a devout Pentecostal, finds solace in the powerful music of her church, Anneth seeks comfort in the rougher edges of life found in dancing, drinking, and fast living. Easter believes in tradition and is intent on rearing her wild young sister properly, but it's only a matter of time before a wedge is driven between them, and threatens to undo their bond forever. . . .

In this extraordinary novel in letters, an Indian immigrant girl in New York City and a Kentucky coal miner's son find strength and perspective by sharing their true selves across the miles. Meena and River have a lot in common: fathers forced to work away from home to make ends meet, grandmothers who mean the world to them, and faithful dogs. But Meena is an Indian immigrant girl living in New York City's Chinatown, while River is a Kentucky coal miner's son. As Meena's family studies for citizenship exams and River's town faces devastating mountaintop removal, this unlikely pair become pen pals, sharing thoughts and, as their camaraderie deepens, discovering common ground in their disparate experiences. With honesty and humor, Meena and River bridge the miles between them, creating a friendship that inspires bravery and defeats cultural misconceptions. Narrated in two voices, each voice distinctly articulated by a separate gifted author, this chronicle of two lives powerfully conveys the great value of being and having a friend and the joys of opening our lives to others who live beneath the same sun.

In his timely YA debut, a best-selling novelist revisits a summer of tumult and truth for a young narrator and his war-torn family. Bicentennial fireworks burn the sky. Bob Seger growls from a transistor radio. And down by the river, girls line up on lawn chairs in pursuit of the perfect tan. Yet for ten-year-old Eli Book, the summer of 1976 is the one that threatened to tear his family apart. There is his distant mother; his traumatized Vietnam vet dad; his wild sister; his former war-protester aunt; and his tough yet troubled best friend, Edie, the only person with whom he can be himself. As tempers flare and his father's nightmares rage, Eli watches from the sidelines, but soon even he cannot escape the current of conflict. From Silas House comes a tender look at the complexities of childhood and the realities of war - a quintessentially Southern novel filled with music, nostalgic detail, a deep respect for nature, and a powerful sense of place.

Like an old-fashioned hymn sung in rounds, Something's Rising gives a stirring voice to the lives, culture, and determination of the people fighting the destructive practice of mountaintop removal in the coalfields of central Appalachia. Each person's story, unique and unfiltered, articulates the hardship of living in these majestic mountains amid the daily desecration of the land by the coal industry because of America's insistence on cheap energy. Developed as an alternative to strip mining, mountaintop removal mining consists of blasting away the tops of mountains, dumping waste into the valleys, and retrieving the exposed coal. This process buries streams, pollutes wells and waterways, and alters fragile ecologies in the region. The people who live, work, and raise families in central Appalachia face not only the physical destruction of their land but also the loss of their culture and health in a society dominated by the consequences of mountaintop removal. Included here are oral histories from Jean Ritchie, "the mother of folk," who doesn't let her eighty-six years slow down her fighting spirit; Judy Bonds, a tough-talking coal-miner's daughter; Kathy Mattea, the beloved country singer who believes cooperation is the key to winning the battle; Jack Spadaro, the heroic whistle-blower who has risked everything to share his insider knowledge of federal mining agencies; Larry Bush, who doesn't back down even when speeding coal trucks are used to intimidate him; Denise Giardina, a celebrated writer who ran for governor to bring attention to the issue; and many more. The book features both well-known activists and people rarely in the media. Each oral history is prefaced with a biographical essay that vividly establishes the interview settings and the subjects' connections to their region. Written and edited by native sons of the mountains, this compelling book captures a fever-pitch moment in the movement against mountaintop removal. Silas House and Jason Howard are experts on the history of resistance in Appalachia, the legacy of exploitation of the region's natural resources, and area's unique culture and landscape. This lyrical and informative text provides a critical perspective on a powerful industry. The cumulative effect of these stories is stunning and powerful. Something's Rising will long stand as a testament to the social and ecological consequences of energy at any cost and will be especially welcomed by readers of Appalachian studies, environmental science, and by all who value the mountain's majesty -- our national heritage.

An illustrated chronicle of the growing protest movement against mountaintop removal mining (MTR) of coal in Appalachia, including essays, commentary, and oral histories.

This book deals with a subject of the gravest importance---the destruction of the Earth. Kentucky's mountains and the creatures who live there are being devastated by the coal-mining technique known as mountaintop removal. Features authors: Lucy Flood, Charles Bracelen Flood, Davis McCombs, George Ella Lyon, Stephen George, Anne Shelby, Artie Ann Bates, Bob Sloan, Betty Wood, Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, Chris Holbrook, Silas House, Erik Reece, Jeff Worley, Steven R. Cope, Maurice Manning, Loyal Jones, Pauline Stacy, Whitney Baker, Gwyn Hyman Rubio, Tony Crunk, Bobbie Ann Mason, Wendell Berry, Daymon Morgan, Richard Taylor, Leatha Kendrick, Susan Starr Richards, Amanda Moore, George Brosi, Jerry Hardt, Gurney Norman, Christina E. Lovin, Kristin Johannsen, Ed McClanahan, and Charlie Hughes.

This is a book of beautiful writing that is, simultaneously, an insightful volume about the art of writing. In the various sections of The Hurting Part: The Evolution of An American Play, Silas House presents his three-act drama, The Hurting Part, alongside its full literary and developmental context. The book contains not only the full-length script, but also the short story from which the play itself evolved. Also included are a thorough interview in which House describes his writing process and an analytical essay by the author discussing how the two fictional works originated from one of his family's often-repeated stories. Personal vignettes about the author, his family, and the play's premiere are woven into the literary and cultural fabric of this book. House outlines solid advice for actors on speaking the Appalachian dialect, with which he has a lifetime of experience. He also describes some of the influences that other playwrights and novelists have injected into his own writing. The Hurting Part: The Evolution of an American Play includes photographic images of the author, members of his family, and scenes from the world premiere.

DVD video; approx. 85 minutes. Filmed in Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, the movie uncovers an unexpected set of artists, poets, activists, queer musicians, 'Affrilachian' poets, and intersectional feminists, all unexpected voices emerging form this historically misunderstood region.

M.A. Thesis from Northern Kentucky University. Summary: "Silas House saturates Clay's Quilt and The Coal Tattoo with music: performed music, recorded music, composed music, radio music, and remembered music. One can hardly get further than a page without finding some kind of musical reference. House adeptly uses music for characterization and also as a way of showing the "emotional lives" of his characters. It defines his characters; serves as a window into their "emotional lives"; connects them to each other and to their past; and serves as a romantic bond between characters. For the main characters in these novels, Anneth Sizemore, Easter Sizemore McIntosh, Clay Sizemore, and Alma Mosley, music defines their identity and shapes their character within the larger narrative."

Daring and Dangerous: Deep Sea Divers for grades 4-8 introduces young readers to the exciting world of deep sea diving. From the amazing areas that divers explore to the common dangers they face underwater, this 32-page fact- and photo-filled book offers young readers an opportunity to learn how divers stay save and what they discover about our complex, beautiful world. The Daring and Dangerous Stunt Performers series is an action-packed escape into some of the most daring and dangerous activities on - and beyond - the planet. With topics ranging from stunt performers to space explorers, each spread in these books stands alone so reluctant readers can flip through until something catches their attention. Each book also features glossary words (defined on the pages in which they appear) and a memory game that encourages readers' recall as they are asked to match images to what they've read

Manny loves the manatees at Blue Spring State Park and is on a mission to support their survival. With help from his grandma and some clever fundraising ideas, will he be successful in his attempt to become a guardian of his favorite manatee? Especially appealing to reluctant readers, this short, 32-page chapter book features diverse characters and a multi-generational family. With full-color illustrations and a heartwarming story, this hi-lo book will capture the attention of kids who enjoy realistic fiction stories.

Kuda is a bit of a grump who doesn't like change. So when he wakes up to find new neighbors and loud, strange noises in his woods, he is not happy. Will his desire to be with his friends overcome his objections to loud sounds? And might Kuda's courage help him discover that new things and rock and roll music can be pretty great? Featuring helpful backmatter about Sensory Integration and insider jokes for parents with autistic kids.

Soar along with the fastest birds in the world. Learn what gives them the ability to zoom through the sky like airplanes. From swift seabirds to high-speed hawks, readers in grades 4-8 will discover surprising facts about ten of the fastest speedsters of the sky. Fast, faster, fastest! From cars to sea creatures, this fact- and image-filled series lets readers discover the fastest creatures and creations in a variety of categories. These high interest, low reading level books feature stand-alone spreads, so readers can flip pages and read in any order. Glossary words are defined on the page where they appear, boosting reader comprehension.

Let's take a thrilling peek at some of the speediest boats in the world. From sailboats and pontoons to catamarans and speedboats, readers in grades 4-8 will check out these ten vessels known for top speeds--some topping out at more than 300 miles an hour! Fast, faster, fastest! From cars to sea creatures, this fact- and image-filled series lets readers discover the fastest creatures and creations in a variety of categories. These high interest, low reading level books feature stand-alone spreads, so readers can flip pages and read in any order. Glossary words are defined on the page where they appear, boosting reader comprehension.

Just how fast are the fastest cars on Earth? Buckle up, you're about to find out! In this book, readers in grades 4-8 will hit the road with these ten cars built for speed and find out what makes them unique in the automobile world. Fast, faster, fastest! From cars to sea creatures, this fact- and image-filled series lets readers discover the fastest creatures and creations in a variety of categories. These high interest, low reading level books feature stand-alone spreads, so readers can flip pages and read in any order. Glossary words are defined on the page where they appear, boosting reader comprehension.

Eat or be eaten? Speed can make the difference! In this book, readers in grades 4-8 will discover surprising facts about ten of the fastest land animals on the planet. Fast, faster, fastest! From cars to sea creatures, this fact- and image-filled series lets readers discover the fastest creatures and creations in a variety of categories. These high interest, low reading level books feature stand-alone spreads, so readers can flip pages and read in any order. Glossary words are defined on the page where they appear, boosting reader comprehension.

Take off with ten of the fastest planes in the world! Join them as they race through the sky on missions. From spying on enemies to protecting allies, readers in grades 4-8 will discover how these supersonic planes operate like birds of the highest skies. Fast, faster, fastest! From cars to sea creatures, this fact- and image-filled series lets readers discover the fastest creatures and creations in a variety of categories. These high interest, low reading level books feature stand-alone spreads, so readers can flip pages and read in any order. Glossary words are defined on the page where they appear, boosting reader comprehension.

Discover some of the fastest sea animals on the planet! From the giant orca to the spectacular sailfish, readers in grades 4-8 will learn how these unique creatures use their speedy skills to survive and thrive. Fast, faster, fastest! From cars to sea creatures, this fact- and image-filled series lets readers discover the fastest creatures and creations in a variety of categories. These high interest, low reading level books feature stand-alone spreads, so readers can flip pages and read in any order. Glossary words are defined on the page where they appear, boosting reader comprehension.

"In the United States, government leaders are elected. The highest leader in the nation is the president. Every four years, voters choose who the next president will be. But the road to the White House begins long before Election Day and involves lots of people. Learn more about the process of electing government leaders"--

"Through these poems, Amal al-Jubouri connects us to the earliest known poems, and yet the dialectic tension between them is utterly contemporary. Al-Jubouri writes 'This is my protest, this is my folly,' yet these poems are neither simple protest nor in any sense folly. These poems are both essential and eternal."--Nick Flynn This translation of Iraqi author Amal al-Jubouri contextualizes America's occupation of Iraq through the Qur'an's story of Hagar. Complementary pairs of poems portray life before and after the war. This work simultaneously mirrors Hagar's desperate running between Safa and Marwah, as we pace frantically between pre- and post-occupation Iraq--the poet begging in vain for poetry not to abandon her people. Honor before the occupation Worship the Leader Love the Party Curse America, the siege ~ Honor after the occupation Curse the Dictator Forsake the Party Clap with flowers in your hand for America, her wall Amal al-Jubouri, a native of Iraq, is the author of five collections of poetry including Wine from Wounds; Words, Set Me Free!; Enheduanna, Priestess of Exile; and 99 Veils. In 1997 she took asylum in Germany after having been listed first on Uday Hussein's list of renegade Iraqi writers and was the first Iraqi writer to return to Baghdad, two days after the fall of the regime. The founder and editor-in-chief ofal-Diwan, the first and only Arab-German literary magazine, she is president of the East-West Diwan German Cultural Foundation and acts as cultural counselor for the Yemen Embassy in Berlin.

Poetry. "To enter into these poems one must be fully committed, as the poet is, to seeing this world as it is, to staying with it, moment by moment, day by day. Yet these poems hold a dark promise: this is how you can do it, but you must be fully engaged, which means you must be fully awake, you must wake up inside it. As we proceed, the how-to of the beginning poems subtly transform, as the animals (or, more specifically, the livestock) we are engaging begin to, more and more, become part of us, literally and figuratively we enter inside of that which we devour." -Nick Flynn "This is the book you want with you in the cellar when the tornado is upstairs taking your house and your farm. It's the book you want in the bomb shelter, and in the stalled car, in the kitchen waiting for the kids to come home, in the library when the library books are burned. Its instructions are clear and urgent. Rebecca Gayle Howell has pressed her face to the face of the actual animal world. She remembers everything we have forgotten. Read this! It's not too late. We can start over from right here and right now." -Marie Howe "In every one of these haunting and hungry poems, Howell draws a map for how to enter the heat and dew of the human being, naked and facing the natural world, desperate to feel. I did not realize while reading RENDER how deeply I was handing everything over." -Nikky Finney

Poems; 60 pages. American Purgatory is a story of the working class, a dystopia set in a near-future United States marked by severe drought, herbicidal warfare, and a totalitarian climate of poverty. This purgatory is populated by those who believe if that they work hard enough, they will be set free. Against this backdrop, three unlikely characters begin a journey that will take them away from work, belief, and even each other, until the protagonist uncovers the truth about this place and the people in it--a truth that indeed sets her free. Equal parts Dante and Cormac McCarthy, American Purgatory is a coming-of-age for capitalism written in the decade of tea-party terror.

Poems; 46 pages.

Master's thesis from the University of Kentucky.

M.F.A. thesis from Drew University.

The term "Holocaust survivors" is often associated with Jewish communities in New York City or along Florida's Gold Coast. Traditionally, tales of America's Holocaust survivors, in both individual and cultural histories, have focused on places where people fleeing from Nazi atrocities congregated in large numbers for comfort and community following World War II. Yet not all Jewish refugees chose to settle in heavily populated areas of the United States. In This Is Home Now: Kentucky's Holocaust Survivors Speak, oral historian Arwen Donahue and photographer Rebecca Gayle Howell focus on overlooked stories that unfold in the aftermath of the Holocaust. They present the accounts of Jewish survivors who resettled not in major metropolitan areas but in southern, often rural, communities. Many of the survivors in these smaller communities did not even seek out the few fellow Jewish residents already there. Donahue transcribes the accounts as she heard them, keeping true to the voices of those she interviewed. One of the survivors who shares her tale, Sylvia Green, describes the pain and desolation of her experiences in the Nazi death camps with a voice that reveals both her German-Polish heritage and her subsequent small-town life in Winchester, Kentucky. The Hungarian-born Paul Schlisser has an equally complex voice, a mix of phrases learned in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and regional speech patterns acquired in his adopted home near Fort Knox. Donahue's collection of voices, accompanied by Howell's poignant photographs, identifies each storyteller as an American -- and as a Kentuckian. Like many others of diverse backgrounds before them, Holocaust survivors joined the "melting pot" as a haven from the suffering in their native lands, but they eventually came to regard America as home. Although they speak of atrocities, most often experienced when they were children and unable to fully comprehend the situation, they also emphasize the comfort of acceptance -- not just by Jewish communities but also by a state that has long equated "religion" with Christianity alone. Kentucky is not known for its cultural and religious diversity, yet these stories reveal one of the many ways that the state has become home to a wide spectrum of immigrants -- people who once were strangers but now are its own.

When Katherine Pettit and May Stone arrived in the rural Appalachian mountains of eastern Kentucky to engage in social settlement work in the late 1800s, they were unmarried outsiders, living in pitched tents on the side of a hill, and perceived as odd, peculiar -- and "quare" (the local pronunciation of "queer"). Yet these strong, capable educators wanted to "learn all we can and teach all we can," and in doing so would persevere to establish the Hindman Settlement School in 1902. When Lucy Furman arrived at the school five years later, she was already an accomplished writer, but used her two decades of living and working at the school as fruitful and prolific inspiration for her beloved novels. Printed for the first time since 1941, this lightly fictionalized account of Pettit's and Stone's entrances into the Hindman community offers the contemporary reader a unique look at this country's early rural/urban divide. From the time of its first publication in The Atlantic to the last edition of the bound book, The Quare Women was a big success. Readers loved the book's dramatic adventure and romance, as well as the real-life research that Furman used to create the story. To this day, the Hindman Settlement School believes in "honoring the past, improving the present, and planning for the bright and colorful future of Central Appalachia." This book endures as a lasting testament to the spirit and legacy of these trailblazing women. "1923 edition published by The Atlantic Monthly Press." --title page verso. First published in 1923.

Collection of poems; 24 pages. Contains "Try to see no evil" by Rebecca Gayle Howell.

Collection of poetry; 24 pages. Contains, "Somethings' coming but never does" by Rebecca Gayle Howell

DVD; approx. 72 minutes. This disc is a recorded DVD and may not play on all DVD players or drives. Videotaped at Smith College's Weinstein Auditorium, October 2, 2012.